


Too Far Down the Road

by SoniaVice



Category: Original Work
Genre: Amnesia, Hockey, M/M, Original Character(s), Original Fiction, Sports
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-24 06:41:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 110,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13208136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoniaVice/pseuds/SoniaVice
Summary: Meet Tony Grenier. He has it all — piles of money, slightly faded stardom, two kids he loves, and a young, hot, hockey-star boyfriend in Sean McCallum. Tony even has the beginnings of a second career going strong in the front office of an AHL team.And then Cally wakes up one day with no memory of Tony, his own past, or even how to play hockey. Tony faces the emergency in front of him because the future is too far down the road to worry about.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content Notes: 
> 
> The setting is an imaginary set of teams that could exist in our NHL and AHL. The only real person here is a quick cameo by Bob McKenzie.
> 
> This story uses a version of the amnesia trope, shaded a little towards reality, but no one should think this is meant to be a realistic depiction of memory loss. The amnesia is a metaphor and a plot device.
> 
> But the world here is our world, full of sexism and homophobia, goodness and indifference, stereotypes and thoughtful consideration, unconscious and overt bias of all sorts and basic human decency. All the things people do and think, in other words.
> 
> The characters discuss their own sexuality but the sex depicted is not very explicit. They occasionally discuss negative stereotypes or repeat slurs in conversation.

"Tony, what do you think?"

Tony looked sideways at his boss and didn't take the bait. He wasn't committing himself to any opinion yet.

"Stubborn fuck," Joe said fondly.

No one had ever called him Joe back in the day. Back in their day, when they had both played the game rather than spent their time standing around and watching from cold stands on a Saturday morning, everyone had called Joe Escher 'Joey the Eraser', for his habit of erasing the opposing team's scoring chances with his catching glove.

Tony, however, had been called a stubborn fuck many times before.

"Joe," he said, still finding the name weird, but they were grown men now. And they'd actually had an honest to fucking god meeting in a boardroom to discuss not calling each other by their hockey names to help the guys on the team remember who were the bosses. "Joe, I want to see the entire practice before I tell you what I think of this guy we just traded for, okay?"

"Sure, Tony, sure."

Tony, who had never been called anything else by way of a nickname and wasn't about to become Anthony at the age of 42 just because he had a real job and an ordinary paycheque, turned his full attention back to the guys on the ice.

The Lions had traded one of their minor-league players who'd been nothing much and got back a rough around the edges type who everyone said needed a change of scenery. That usually meant the guy was a total asshole, and it was Tony's job to sort him out if he was. So far, the guy, too old at 23 to be a kid anymore, was quiet and polite off the ice and ragged and maybe good at a few things on it.

Head of Player Development was Tony's exalted sounding title for the Cubs, who claimed Joe as General Manager. What he was head of, he wasn't sure, because his department was a one-man operation. He got the part-time use of the Lions skills coaches twice a year at most, but the rest of the time they were out of sight and out of mind.

Bridgeport was a handy place to stash a development league team. They were close enough to New Haven, where the Lions played and where Tony and Joey the Eraser had made names for themselves in their day, that players could move up and down without moving in and out of motels. They were handy to some of the other teams in the league so that their travel schedule wasn't too painful, and for the farm club of a team in a small market like the Lions played in, they did okay. But they weren't overflowing with amenities or staff.

"Has anybody taught that guy how to fucking take a faceoff?" Tony groused. And then he whistled through his teeth ― all real, thank you very much ― as the guy skated up the ice on a rush and nailed his winger with a perfect pass. "I guess he wasn't getting by on looks."

Joe snorted out a laugh and gave Tony a long look. "I thought you claimed you never noticed guys on the team."

Tony covered his surprise with a polite smile and nodded at the guys filing off the ice. "We need to get him with Al Framer. Let Al show him how to do all the shit no one else ever taught him, and he might amount to something. Not necessarily big league something, but good enough for us, maybe."

"Okay, sounds good."

"And I never said I don't notice, Joey, I said I make sure no one can see me noticing."

"You know everyone around here is okay with this now, Tony, right?" Joe said.

"Sure," Tony lied. "Sure they are. Now that they see I'm keeping this job and keeping my hands off guys like that," Tony nodded at the ice, "they're fine." They weren't fine, not all of them, but he'd never expected to be out at all, however quietly, and definitely not at work when work was a hockey job, so he wasn't complaining.

"Tony ―" Joe said, hearing the truth in his tone because he'd never been good at hiding shit from Joe.

Tony's phone interrupted Joe, for which Tony was very grateful. They'd had too many uncomfortable conversations when his thing with Cally had gotten serious enough that Cally had moved in with him. He didn't need another.

He took the call when he saw it was his son Pat.

"Dad! Something's wrong."

"What's up, son? Calm down."

"Cally's not getting up. He's like an hour late, and he will never get to New Haven for practice on time. I banged on the door, Dad, pounded on it."

"Is it locked?" Tony asked, looking up at Joe and wanting to get the hell somewhere private for this call, but Joe had him boxed out of the fast route to the stairs down to the tunnel that led to their offices behind the practice arena.

"No, should I?" Pat sighed. "I should just go in, shit. Hold on. Sorry."

"I've heard the word shit before, Patty," he said, hoping his tone would calm the boy down. He was sixteen, nearly not a boy anymore but not really a man.

Tony had nothing to calm himself down with, was the problem. If any guy in the game was a dedicated professional who had never overslept a single time, it was Cally, but he'd been weirdly tired lately.

"Okay, I'm going in," Pat said, and Tony waited while he heard Pat quietly call out Cally's name.

He told himself it was a normal thing, his boy having to go into his father's bedroom to wake up his dad's sick boyfriend. It was fine.

"He's out of it, Dad," Pat said. "I think you should come home, like now."

"Okay, Patty, I'm coming. I am, but," Tony gestured for Joe to get the fuck out of his way, and he took off at a jog for the office, "what do you mean out of it?"

"Like he's passed out or something. I tried shaking him, and he won't wake up. He's not breathing weird like he's sick or anything. I don't know, Dad, it's weird."

It was weird. It was weird and stayed weird and didn't look anything like fine once Tony had broken his speed record from the rink to his house. He had relocated from New Haven to a suburb on the edge of town, but still on the Bridgeport side of the bridge when he'd taken the job with the Cubs.

He tried to act cool when he ran into his bedroom and found Cally sitting up and rubbing his face while Pat stood just inside the door. "He woke up, Dad, but there's something wrong with him," Pat said.

"Cally?" Tony said quietly. He crossed the room and bent, setting his hand on Cally's face.

Cally was pale at the best of times, with freckles all over skin that could look pink in the right light. He didn't look his best; he looked half dead, bleached out bloodless white and with big circles under confused and watery blue eyes.

"No?" Cally said, voice soft and confused. "No."

"Cally, what's wrong, are you sick?" He laid the back of his hand on Cally's forehead like he would with one of his kids, but Cally's skin felt normal. "You aren't hot."

"I don't know. I don't ― where am I? What's going on?"

"Tell me how you feel, okay?" Tony said, while he got out his phone and tabbed through to the staff contacts for the Cubs. He should call the Lions team doctor since Cally was one of theirs, but he was farther away in New Haven. Tony did not want to have all this be office gossip in Bridgeport, however.

"I feel sort of green," Cally said seriously.

"If that means you're going to puke, do it in the bucket," Tony said and got the garbage can.

He said to hell with gossip and called the Cubs doctor, who said Cally sounded like he had the flu and to just call the Lions and say he was out sick.

"Cally, do you think you have the flu?" Tony asked, keeping the doctor on the phone.

Cally screwed up his face and looked around, attention settling on Pat by the door. "Is he Cally?" he asked, pointing.

"You are, Cally, come on." Tony said, fear rising.

"No," Cally said, shaking his head.

"Fine then," Tony answered, hoping Cally was making a stupid joke about his name. Tony was prepared to be angry if he was, terrified if he wasn't. "Who are you then?"

"I don't know," Cally said and shrugged. "I want to go to sleep, though."

He pulled away from Tony and burrowed under the covers. Tony stared at him for a beat. "I need the number of the Lions doctor," he said into the phone.

It only took an hour for Doctor Koss to show up, and Tony spent the time telling himself he was overreacting while he tried to keep Cally sitting up and awake. Koss was a new guy, and Tony had talked to him on the phone once to discuss a player the Lions had sent them to get over a knee injury, but he'd never met him. He had no idea what the man knew about Cally or him or their relationship.

"Go let him in," Tony told Pat, while he got Cally to sit up again.

"I don't want to be up," Cally said, sounding a little petulant. He also sounded stoned.

Koss barely acknowledged Tony or the arrangements of the room they were in when he came in. He used an ear thermometer on Cally and then frowned at the result and tried it a second time. He looked at Cally's eyes, and stood back and stared at him, puzzled frown in place.

"Did you drink anything, take something?" Koss said to Cally.

"I don't know," Cally mumbled. "I don't like you anyway. Where's that other guy?"

"Cally?" Tony said, coming closer again.

"He sounds stoned," Koss said, sourly.

Cally ignored Koss and looked up at Tony, who was leaning over him. Cally smiled, sunny and happy and like a guy who was really fucking stoned. "I like you," he said. "You're pretty and you're nice."

Tony frowned, worried Cally had taken something somehow. Cally caught his mood and the sunny smile faded. "I don't know what's going on," he said, sounding afraid.

"It's okay, Cally. It is." Fuck it. Tony reached out and ran his hand over Cally's hair. He usually kept it so short, it never got long enough to look as pinkish as it could, but it had gotten longer, left unkempt while Cally had been sick. Tony had seen pictures from when Cally was a boy, all strawberry and cream and sunburned cheeks, and he'd look that way soon without a cut.

"I'll have to do a blood test," Koss said.

"He didn't have anything to drink," Tony said. "He's been feeling a little tired, run down. All he does is sleep, so no way he took anything."

"I'm tired now," Cally said. "Will you stay with me, though?"

"Yeah, always, Cally. Always, okay?" Tony's guts clenched, but he knew how to gut it out. He had fully grown kids who could tell you how tough Tony was when they had a broken arm or the chicken pox so bad they were nearly delirious. "It's like he has a fever, but he doesn't," Tony said.

"Hydration is probably not a bad idea," Koss said absently, poking at his phone.

"Pat!" Tony called, and his son appeared gratifyingly quickly. "Get Cally something to drink, a Gatorade or something."

"Sure, Dad. Is he okay? He didn't know who I was when I woke him up."

"Yeah, he's fine, Patty. It's all good. Just a fever or something."

"Mr McCallum," Koss said, addressing Cally. "When did you first feel ill?"

"Who's that?" Cally asked, frowning and rubbing at his forehead.

"You, Mr McCallum. That's you."

"No, it's not. Who are you, anyway? I want the pretty one, he's nice to me."

"Cally," Tony said, almost laughing in the face of whatever the hell kind of disaster he was in the middle of. "Dr Koss is trying to help."

"Oh, shit," Cally said and clapped his hand over his mouth. "Maybe I shouldn't say that. That I think you're pretty. Shit, I'm sorry."

"Never stopped you before," Pat said, sliding between Koss and the dresser and handing over a green sports drink.

"No?" Cally said, taking the drink. "He is, though. His eyes crinkle up when he smiles, and he's got nice lips."

"You guys seem to like each other, so I think it's okay if you say so," Pat said, turning to glare at Koss who was ignoring them all anyway.

"Do I have to drink the green stuff?"

"Yeah, dude, you do," Pat said.

Cally sipped at it while Tony came closer and watched him. He seemed like he was getting better. Tired, but not out of it, like he was waking up from whatever it was.

"Okay, we're going to admit him," Koss said abruptly.

"What?" Tony said, "Now?"

"Tony, we don't know what is wrong here. And this memory loss is very worrying. Maybe we've got a virus, or maybe it's an allergic reaction to something, something he took. I don't know."

"Tony? Is that your name?" Cally said. "I like that."

Tony turned and stared at him. Denial had been his vice for a long time, but he'd given it up for good when he'd gone through the divorce and come out the other side accepting who he was. He couldn't take it up again now, not when Cally needed him, no matter how much he wanted to. Cally hadn't shown the slightest hint he had any idea who Tony was, who anyone was.

"Pat!" Tony said.

"Yeah, Dad?"

"Warm up the car, and then call your brother and see if he can come down for the weekend."

"I don't need a babysitter, Dad."

"I might need someone who can drive, Pat," he said.

"Yeah, sorry, Dad. It's not all about me, I know."

"Thanks, Patty, get the car going, okay?"

"Is he okay, Dad?"

"He will be, son, he will be."

"Tony," Cally said, "What's going on?"

"Okay, Cally." Tony ignored Koss completely and went and sat on the bed, turned enough so he could look Cally in the eye. "Something is wrong with you. You don't remember things you should know."

"Like who you are? I like you, though, Tony. I ― is this your house?" Cally looked around like he was seeing it for the first time, and he absently sipped at his green drink while he did it.

"It's our house, Cally. You live here too."

"Really? It's nice." He turned a smile on Tony that was half the usual wattage this new version of Cally was prone to.

Tony was acutely aware of Koss still in the room, but he ruthlessly sat on his discomfort.

"I have to go to the hospital don't I?" Cally said.

"Yeah, you do, so we can figure out what's up and fix it."

"You'll come with me, though? I won't have to go alone?"

"Yeah, I will. First, you need clothes. Socks." Tony got up and found socks and a warm hoodie and figured Cally's leather coat would do.

"This is a very nice coat," Cally said with intensity when they'd made it to the hallway with Cally dressed well enough for an emergency. He ran his hands down the front of it and twisted around to see all of it. "I need shoes, though."

"Fuck, yeah." Tony ran and got him shoes. He also brought a hastily packed bag made up in Cally's road trip carry-on bag, and he could not freak out, he didn't have time.

It would be fine. It would. They would get him to the hospital and it would be fine.


	2. Chapter 2

Cally got in the car, and Tony turned to buckle him in, but it was already done.

It was weird that he knew how to do everything, walk, talk, put on shoes, but he didn't know anyone. He didn't seem to be upset or worried either, which was the weirdest thing of all.

Koss had told Tony where to go, where to meet him to drop off Cally, and where to park. He jogged back up to the hospital entrance right next to emergency and was relieved to find Cally slumped in a chair. Koss was nowhere to be seen.

"Jesus, he just left you here?" Tony demanded.

"I don't need a babysitter," Cally said in excellent imitation of Pat, and then he cracked up laughing.

Tony turned his back to keep from punching him in the face. Christ, he needed to get it together.

"I'm sorry, Tony," Cally said. "I thought it was funny. Don't be mad, okay?"

"I'm not mad."

"You are so."

Tony turned to face him. That had sounded just like his man, the tone, the words, the laughter in his voice. "Cally?" he said.

"Why do you call me that, anyway? My name is Sean."

"Yeah, yeah it is." His heart was pounding in excitement. He was coming around already, remembering. "Do you want me to call you Sean?"

"It's my name," Cally said and shrugged.

They got no deeper into the meanings of the names Cally's parents had given him versus the name his teammates had always used. A nurse came and slipped a plastic bracelet on Cally's wrist and gave them directions to the floor they were to go to.

Tony followed the red line on the wall and noticed a clock outside the elevator that claimed it was only just noon. It felt like he'd been at this for days, worrying about Cally, hoping he'd be okay. Tony looked over and all Cally seemed to be was tired.

The department they admitted Cally to was quiet, as if no emergencies ever happened in it, and he was taken away, leaving Tony to wait for an eternity in the purgatory of worry. Nothing ever happened in purgatory either.

He'd been snowed in in an airport once for 11 hours. The hospital waiting room was worse.

Eventually, a nurse came and got him. "Mr McCallum is getting a bit uncooperative," the man said wryly.

"What?" Tony asked, alarmed. "Is he okay?"

"The examination so far was mostly a lot of questions to test his memory function. He's tired of answering. It's stress likely, Mister uh?"

"Grenier, Tony Grenier."

"Mr Grenier. And you are Mr McCallum's relative?"

Tony looked at the man and stopped walking, forcing him to stop as well. "What are you asking?"

"Are you his partner?" the man said bluntly. "He talks about you like you are."

"Yes."

"Okay, that's good to know. I need to know who is who in order to look after my patients, and they can't always tell me."

"Right, okay."

"He is anxious to see you."

Tony took that as the instruction it was and started walking.

"Tony!" Cally said when he came in the door. "Tony, don't leave me again."

"Sorry, Cally, they needed to look at you."

"Yeah, well," Cally said sullenly, "they talked at me."

Tony pulled the chair close enough that Cally could reach out and clasp his hand. Tony squeezed and held on.

They'd taken Cally's clothes and given him a hospital gown that looked too light for a cold day in winter. Cally always looked cold with his pale skin, and he was still paler than normal. The IV in his arm said they'd done more than just talk.

"I can't answer any questions right. I don't think they like it," Cally said.

"Talk about whatever you like, then, Cally."

"Why do you call me that? Sean is my name. They said so downstairs."

Tony ducked his head so Cally wouldn't see his disappointment. Of course, they'd told him. Tony had given Cally his wallet at the house, and they would have needed his ID for admitting. Cally hadn't remembered his name at all. Hope was a nasty and evil thing sometimes.

Tony tried to keep an even tone as he explained things. "Your last name, Sean, is McCallum. Cally's a nickname, a play on McCallum. But," Tony made himself look up and meet Cally's eyes, "you get to choose for yourself. Whatever name feels good to you."

"I like either when you say them," Cally said. "I wasn't scared before, but now, here ― what are they going to do with me?"

"That's what we'll discuss, Sean," said a doctor who kept on coming inside the room, not waiting to be asked. Tony almost jerked his hand away from Cally's, but he sat up, stiffened his spine for real as well as metaphorically and looked expectantly at the doctor.

He had a lot to say, Doctor Ingles. Not much of it fixed the ache in Tony's heart.

"We think it's likely that you have a problem called encephalitis. This is a swelling of the brain, and it is likely an illness that caused it. We'll know more when we can do a brain scan which we will do tomorrow."

"I can go home, though? Now?" Cally said.

"No, Sean, no, you have to stay while we make sure whatever caused the swelling is out of your system. Your white cell count is a little high, so some kind of underlying illness is likely, but we'll know when we run the blood work again if it's improving."

"He was sick about a month ago, and he's been slow to bounce back," Tony said.

Ingles nodded. "Doctor Koss said it looked like a virus. And that could be our culprit now. We'll know more tomorrow. For now, and we'll test him further, but he has not shown any sign of difficulty in forming new memories, and ―"

"Those were the questions I got right," Cally said.

Tony glanced over at Cally and saw him looking expectantly, like he wanted praise for being right about something. "What did you get wrong, Cally?"

"Everything else."

"Not everything," Ingles said, shaking his head. "He is able to talk about concepts for things ― how you shake hands or what steps you take to make toast or several other tasks. He knows what a government is, but not who the president is. He knows what a TV show is, but can't name any. He knows what a book is, and can't recall having read any."

"Who won the cup last year?" Tony said to Cally in a casual tone.

"That's hockey, isn't it?" Cally said, screwing up his face. "Teams have dumb names."

"That is exactly the sort of thing we found," Ingles said, nodding. "As for people, he cannot name anyone, famous people or close relatives that he hasn't met today. But he did a very good job of naming every person he _has_ met today and providing details about them."

"When Tony is going to smile, the left side of his mouth goes up first," Cally said and then watched, so obviously wanting Tony to smile at him, that he couldn't help but do it. "There, see!"

"Is this temporary?" Tony asked and felt his guts lurch, terrified the answer was going to be no.

"We don't know. If this is what we think it is, and the cases are rare, so the documentation is often not what we'd like, but if it is damage caused by viral encephalitis, his brain may grow new routes to the information that he isn't finding right now. It would be irresponsible to predict patient outcomes at this stage."

"You can't tell who is going to win in the first month of the season, Tony," Cally said seriously. "So, we shouldn't worry yet."

"Did someone tell you that, Cally? Today in the hospital?" Tony asked, hoping for the right answer.

"No," Cally said, frowning. "I just know that."

"Doctor, does that mean ―"

"No," Ingles said. "It is likely that Sean knows a lot of things but won't know how he knows them. Ideas, concepts. He may even express them in the exact words he's used before. But, this kind of neurological issue, if that is what we have here, there aren't any rules. We just have to wait and see what his brain does."

"So you're saying he has no," Tony waved his hand around his own head, "impairment or whatever?"

"His cognitive abilities seem fine in preliminary tests. We need to do more extensive tests after the scan. Our plan is for him to stay here until at least his white cell count is normal and we think there is no residual viral infection. We'll talk tomorrow, gentlemen. Until then, the best thing for him is rest."

Ingles swept out of the room before Tony could ask him why he never talked to Cally if he thought his thinking ability wasn't impaired.

Tony turned to look at Cally and didn't know what to think about it all. Cally seemed almost childlike at times, but at others, he seemed normal.

"Tony?" Cally said softly. "Are you doing okay? You look freaked out."

"I am freaked out, Cally." He pulled his chair closer to the hospital bed and took Cally's hand in both of his. "I am very freaked out, but I'll be here for you okay? I promise that."

"I can be here for you, Tony. I know how to do that."

Cally looked very serious, very adult and normal and serious ― intense, like he only was when shit was real or he was on the ice. Cally tried to move his other hand but was stymied by the IV. He flicked the line back where it belonged with an irritated scowl and slipped his free hand out of Tony's grasp. Cally touched Tony's face with the backs of two fingers and smiled softly as he ran them down Tony's cheek. Tony wanted to shiver or climb in the bed with him and hold onto him. Cally moved to his shoulder and ran his hand down Tony's arm, and then he raised his brows and squeezed, went back up and tested his delts.

"Tony," Cally said, in an admiring tone that was almost campy it was so unsubtle. "You are not just a pretty face."

"Cally," Tony said, at a total loss to know what to do or say.

"Shouldn't I say that? Shit, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Tony. Maybe you have to tell me what not to say. I ― one of the things they asked me about with all their questions was who I knew, and I said you were my boyfriend and I loved you, and they got all weird. Not all of them, some of them. That's how it works, though. I know that. It's a thing I know."

It was too much, way too fucking much. Cally had said those words to him twice ever, and here he was belting it out in the fucking hospital room like it was just a simple fact to him. Maybe it was. Maybe it was all of a piece with how he understood that people would be weird about him being gay or how he thought Pat's teenage touchiness was funny.

"Cally," he said and stopped. He should say it back. Fuck. He had to. "First, okay, I feel the same ― "

The bright smile was blinding, so blinding he didn't see the smirk in the corners at first. A very Cally smirk. "You can't say it," he said, triumphant.

"Cally ― Jesus, trust you to be competitive over that. Yes, okay, I love you too, satisfied?"

"For now," he said, merriment fading fast, eclipsed by worry. "People know? About us?"

"The kids, obviously and ―"

"Kids! You told Patty to call his brother. You have ― Patty has a brother?"

"Yeah, I have two boys. Andy is older, and he's called Andrew, really."

"We didn't decide on my name," Cally said. "Can I meet Andy, though?"

"Yeah, of course you can," Tony said, trying not to let it show, how it felt to hear him say it that way. "I think the hospital people will keep calling you Sean, though."

"That's how it works, yeah. That's a thing I know. Nicknames are for people who love you. Your real name is for when you're in trouble. So you have to call me Cally, I guess, Tony, since you admitted how you feel." Cally flashed him a shit-eating grin and then yawned hugely without any attempt to cover it up.

"You should sleep," Tony said, "Get this virus or whatever it is gone faster, so you get better."

"Okay. Are you staying?"

"I am, Cally." Tony sighed and rubbed his face. Cally put his hand back on Tony's shoulder and squeezed again, pulled him closer, so he could run his hand down Tony's back, and Tony wanted to just collapse and cry on Cally's shoulder or something. He had to man up. He couldn't fall apart, so he sat up properly and caught Cally's hand in his again. "I have to call your parents, so I'll go somewhere where I'm allowed to use my phone. Just someplace in the hospital that's quiet. Not far."

"Parents?" Cally said, amazed, and then he laughed ruefully. "I guess I have them. What are they like?"

"Cally, I don't really know them. I've met them twice, and it was ― It wasn't a long visit either time, so I think … fuck if I know what I think, Cally."

"Hey, Tony, come here, okay? I feel better when you touch me. That's my first memory, that when you put your hand on my face, I felt like everything was okay."

Tony did what Cally wanted and perched half on the side of the bed and let his man hold onto him and run his hands up and down his arms. It was still Cally in there. You didn't go away just because you couldn't remember things. He had to believe that. It was still his Cally who knew exactly how to lighten him up when he got down or angry or frustrated.

"I think," Tony said, half into Cally's chest, "that you should see your parents and decide for yourself. I don't want what I think I know about them to make you feel things that aren't your feelings."

"Okay, Tony, okay."

Cally was quiet and was just holding on, not moving much. Tony thought he'd gone to sleep. He sat up, and Cally turned to look at him and he smiled soft, like he was on the verge of drifting off.

Tony reached out and touched his face, and Cally turned his head and leaned into his palm in a move he'd made a dozen times. A hundred maybe. He was still in there.

"Okay, babe. I'm manning up here to make calls, but I also think I need to go home and see the boys, make them see everything's okay."

"That's a thing you have to do, isn't it? Make sure they feel like you have it under control. I thought that when I met Patty, that I shouldn't let him see me be afraid, that it wasn't right. Did you teach me that?"

"Maybe, Cally. Maybe I did. You were a good man long before I knew you, though."

"You're coming back?" Cally said casually.

Tony looked at him closely and tapped his finger sharply on Cally's hand that was clutching at his own arm. Cally's body didn't look as chill as his voice sounded. "Cally, you don't have to pretend with me. I'm here for you, and you're here for me, obviously. You've proven that. Yes, I'm coming back. I can visit until nine they said." He looked at his watch and swore. "Cally, I gotta get on my skates here and sort this shit out. If I go home and eat, I can be back to hang with you, okay? So sleep now. I'll be back."

"Bossy," Cally said, softly. "Tony, tell my parents I want to meet them."

"Yeah, um, yeah. Cally I'll say you want to see them, okay?"

"Okay."

Tony couldn't just leave the hospital, there was always more paperwork. He had to promise to bring in his power of attorney for Cally, which they had for each other in the safe at home. He gave them Cally's parents' names in case they called in, and he finally escaped to go home.

Andy's car was in the garage at home, which immediately made him feel better. The smell of food in the house helped too. One thing his boys wouldn't do is forget to eat. They were both still in the kitchen.

"Andy!" he said and grabbed his oldest in a bear hug and held on for longer than was usual. "Thanks for coming down, son. I'm not fucking up your plans am I?"

"Naw, s'okay. Come eat, Dad, tell us what's going on."

"Is Cally still sick?" Pat asked while he got Tony a plate and cutlery. They had ordered chicken and mashed potatoes, and Tony took enough to keep himself going, loading on the gravy. It was going to have to do him for lunch and dinner.

He told them about the brain scan, about what they knew and didn't know yet.

"So, he has no idea who anyone is?" Andy asked.

"Sort of," Tony said. "He ― it's really weird, Andy. Hard to explain. He knows about stuff but doesn't remember things he's done. It might get better. It might ― the doctor didn't really offer a lot of answers, so I can't either, not without just out and out telling you guys bullshit. But Cally's staying in until they have a handle on it."

Andy frowned and said, "I can cut out a couple of days of classes, Dad ―"

"No, no. Definitely not. You will not miss class. Shit. I have to call Joey too. Shit. I'm just going to start calling. Get it done."

He broke the no phones at the dinner table rule and started with Joe. He tried to gloss over the severity of the problem because he didn't want gossip filtering out. His team and Cally's team passed guys back and forth and word was going to get out anyway. It would already be news of a sort that Cally had missed practice. At some point, the team would have to announce he was out sick.

Joe told him to take off all the time he needed, which sounded nice but was still an offer with a clock ticking beside it. The other clock ticking in his ear was the one counting the seconds before he was officially being an asshole for not calling Cally's parents. It was getting louder.

Tony looked at Andy and Pat dawdling around like he needed some defensive support, and he leaned back and sort of glared at them. He got the result he expected. They both bristled and sat up, and Andy's chin went up. They were so easy to rile up.

"You want us to leave?" Andy asked in a tone.

"Nope. I want to tell you both I love you."

"Aw, geez, Dad," Pat said.

"Blame Cally. The blank spots in his brain seem to include the one that makes a man keep that in. I've decided I like that, so I've painted over mine too."

"You gotta call his parents," Andy said, ignoring all his bullshit. Andy was getting too damned smart. All the time in college was making him less head up his own ass.

"Yeah. Fuck. His agent, his manager, his publicist. The fucking Lions."

He started with Koss to see how much he had told the team. The answer was that Koss was waiting on the brain imaging and hadn't said anything other than Cally was sick, no time frame on return. Doctor Koss had never thought about the public relations implications of the mess they were in. Tony told him to tell the team a little more detail and tried not to call him a dumbass. He was just getting annoyed to avoid having to deal with the reality of the situation, he knew that.

He had Cally's phone, so he just used it, put through a call to his mom's number, not his dad's for no reason Tony felt like articulating even to himself. It was only just afternoon out west, so he figured he'd get lucky.

"Hi, sweetheart! I thought you were going to call on Sunday," Donna McCallum said brightly.

"It's, ah, it's Tony, Donna. I have some news."

"Tony. Tony, what is going on. Where is Sean?" She had a parent's instinct; she knew it wasn't good news.

Tony heard her calling for her husband, and then she'd obviously put him on speaker by the sound. He just got the facts out first. "He's in the hospital in Bridgeport. And he's not hurt or anything like that. He has some sort of virus."

"In the hospital?" Josh said. Josh had been a defenceman who never made it out of the minors long before Tony ever played. "Is it a concussion?"

"A virus, Tony said," Donna supplied. "How bad is it?"

"It's ― look this is hard to explain, okay, because it all happened today, and they haven't run all their tests yet. But he was sick about a month ago, few weeks, something. The team doctor said it was the flu, he got better, and he's been mostly okay."

"Mostly?" Donna said. "What does that mean?"

"It means he was a bit run-down."

"Tony, my god, Tony, you aren't telling me ― they don't think this is …" She stopped talking and he was baffled for way too long.

"Shit! No. No, no. Donna! He does not have HIV, okay. No. Definitely not." He almost told her that the team did STD tests more often than most people had their teeth cleaned, but he shut up in time. "No, they think it was something ordinary, something common that looks like the flu. No, the issue is, they think, that this virus caused some swelling in the brain."

"Jesus," Josh said. "What the hell are we talking about here? Is he okay or not?"

"He seems perfectly fine, just tired and run-down. They said his white cell count is high. But it's caused a side effect ― or the swelling is a side effect, I don't fucking know."

"Tony," Josh said ominously.

"He has no memory," Tony said, and then he moved the phone away and pounded the table a couple of times with his fist. He was not fucking crying to Cally's goddamned parents. He couldn't do it in front of his boys either, who were staring at him with big-eyed concern.

"Tony!" he heard twice before he had his shit together enough to answer.

"Look, I said I have no answers, and I meant it. Right now, he seems like a perfectly normal guy, more or less, and he does not know who anybody is. The doctor ― not the team guy, the real one, the neurologist ― he said he can't tell you the president or name a book he's read but he knows what a book is. He can read. He seems mostly just like Cally. Like Sean. They said he's forming new memories fine as far as they can see, but they want to test that."

"Jesus, Tony, what the hell? Why wasn't he in the hospital before?"

"Before what?" Tony said. "Before, when he was fine? Before, when the team doctor said he had the flu and to get more rest?"

"Yeah, okay, fine. Yeah. We're coming out there." Josh had turned the speaker off at some point, while Donna got to break down and sob like Tony couldn't.

"Of course. Look, they're doing some kind of brain scan tomorrow. It will maybe give the doctors some answers. Right now, they won't be pinned down on if he can just get better or what. I asked about treatment, and they hedged, so … I don't know."

"We can't ― I don't know when we can get things sorted to fly out."

"Text me when you know. Wait, shit. I'll text you my number because I'm taking Cally his phone tonight."

"I'm calling him," Josh said firmly.

"No, you're not."

"I ― you can't tell me ―"

"I don't fucking have to. I can just block your number. Do not call him. He won't know who you are. And I'll tell you for free that's a hard fucking thing to experience in person. Do you want to do it on the phone?"

"Dad," Andy said. "Dad, you need to dial that down."

"Yeah, yeah. Sorry. My son is telling me to stop being an asshole, Josh, so I'm stopping. Don't call him. Come see him. See how he responds."

"Your son. Your son is there?"

"Sure, it's the weekend. Patty was the first person to ― I was at work. That was Andy yanking my leash, though." He sighed, and tried to calm down. But he wasn't kidding around, and he wanted Josh to know that. "I will text you my number. I will call you tomorrow morning and tell you how he is. I will call you when the test results are in. I will call you if anything changes. Do not call him. That goes double for Eileen."

"Jesus, Eileen is going to want to drop everything and go see him."

"I don't know, Josh. I don't know if that's a good idea or not. I don't want him bowled over." He hadn't even told Cally yet that he had a sister.

"She's not going to get time off work. I think I'll ― well, I'll sort it out."

"Okay, we know where we are for now. I'll call if that changes."

Tony hung up the phone and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. He needed three fingers of bourbon and Cally. He needed his man to lean on. He looked at his watch and realized that if he got in the car now, he'd be ten minutes early for evening visiting hours.

He called Cally's agent instead of just going to the hospital like he wanted to. Both boys had vanished when he had stopped acting like he was losing it.

Dealing with the agent was the same conversation he'd had with Cally's parents, minus most of the emotion, and he sloughed off the duty of calling anyone else who took a cut of Cally's paycheque onto him.

"Okay, guys!" he called out, getting up from the table.

"What?" Andy called from his room, so Tony went upstairs.

"I'm going," he said from the doorway. Both boys were in Andy's room, which was unusual. They were playing some video game, which wasn't, but they usually did it separately. "I'll be back in a couple of hours, so don't worry, okay."

"Take your own advice, Dad," Andy said. "You can count on us to be fine on our own and handle anything that needs to be done. Just go be with Cally. Tell him we said hi or whatever."

"You guys shouldn't have to handle things ―"

"But we can. And we heart you too, Dad, so suck it up," Andy told him. "Since we're being all, whatever, emotionally intelligent or something."

"I heart you is not emotionally intelligent," Pat said with disdain.

Andy ignored his brother and said, "Was that true, Dad? Is Cally, like, I don't know what you said exactly, but more talkative about stuff like that?"

Pat scoffed forcefully before Tony could figure out how to describe Cally's almost childlike lack of inhibitions. Pat explained it. "He was like, barely awake, right, had no idea who anybody was, and Dad walks in the room, and it was ― he was hitting on him, Andy, right in front of me and the doctor. I have no idea who you are," Pat said, affecting Cally's Canadian accent with a lot of exaggeration, "But I think you're so pretty."

"Get out!" Andy said.

Tony tried to brazen it out, but whatever was on his face made Pat start to laugh and then Andy. "It wasn't like that!" Tony protested.

"He was all, like, hey baby," Pat said, goofing it up for his audience. "And the doctor, his face."

"So," Andy said, frowning, "he doesn't remember you, but he hits on you, like, out of the gate? Does he know not to do that to every guy he sees? You said he remembers things, concepts or whatever. He's not going to get gay bashed is he?"

"No, Andy, he knows. Too much to ask, I guess, that he could get to forget all that bullshit. He knows. Look, I need to go, but thanks for being here, and I'll be home around ten or something like that."

"Go, Dad, we've got it covered here."

He realized in the elevator in the hospital that he had his shoulders up around his ears and his jaw was clenched. He forced himself to relax, to loosen up as much as he could.

He wasn't sure what it meant, the way Cally was acting towards him. He wasn't sure of anything, but he needed to see him, had barely been able to stand to be away from him for a few hours.

"Tony!" Cally said, yanking an earbud out of his ear and expertly working the bed controls so he was sitting up. He was lounging without a sheet, oblivious to the length of his legs that extended out from under the inadequate gown. If they were keeping him in, Tony needed to find him some pyjamas, which were not usually in Cally's wardrobe. He either slept naked on the road or wore workout pants cadged off the trainer. Tony didn't think there was anything in the suitcase he'd packed but underwear.

Cally sat up fully, pulled his legs up so he looked like a giant kid sitting cross-legged and half sideways on the bed. He had his arms open, so it was easy for Tony to lean in and get the hug he'd been too embarrassed to admit he needed. "Cally, fuck," he said into his ear. "You look fantastic."

"I do?"

He grinned like a fool when Tony stepped back and then demanded Tony pull the chair up close. "I feel great, and the nurse says that's a sign the infection is going away. Also, they have a lot of rules that amount to you're not allowed to do anything but lie in bed, so I got TV."

"You do finally look like yourself. It's been weeks, I guess. I don't think I realized how sick you were."

"No? Why?"

"Oh, Cally, hockey is a tough business, and it takes a lot out of you. I thought it was just that. I think the doctor did too."

"Hockey," Cally said in disgust. "Some of the people here want to talk about that. I know what it is, it seems to be a thing I know, but I never know what they're talking about."

"Yeah, Cally, it'll come in time. You'll get all this sorted." He didn't know if he should reassure Cally that his memory would come back or not, so he'd decided not to, but he hoped. He hoped it would all right itself. Seeing him looking so pink-cheeked and alive instead of washed-out pale was helping.

"Are you okay, Tony? You look sort of, I don't know, but you have lines between your brows."

"Yeah, Cally. It's ― this is tough, I don't think I should lie to you about that. But Andy drove down, so I know Pat can get a ride back tomorrow if I'm busy with you.

"Back where?" Cally said, getting his own furrowed brow.

Tony explained it all — his ex-wife in New Haven, his kids, one in college in a dorm, one at home in high school, the weekends, the whole way it had worked out. He found himself telling the story backwards and having to fill in all the things Cally didn't catch onto right away. He didn't have a storehouse of memories of movies or books or conversations with people to know exactly what 'weekend Dad' meant.

"Tony," Cally said slowly when he'd backed up to the divorce and all that had gone with it. "There's a nurse here. He's nice. He said he was worried about me."

"The short guy, sandy-blond, looks like he could bench half again his weight?"

"I think so. I mean the gay one."

"Yeah, okay, I could have just said that, made it easier."

"His name is Charlie," Cally said. "He wanted to make sure that I was ― I don't know how to explain it. That I wasn't too gay for people, and make them mad, I guess."

Tony sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed a fucking bottle of whisky, not just a glass full. "You ― with Doctor Koss there at home, you were worried I wouldn't like how you talked," Tony said, looking for a spot to start.

"Yeah, I know you don't just hit on any guy. That is a thing I know. But I don't think I know what Charlie meant, not really. I knew he was gay."

"Why?" Tony asked, half genuinely curious how Cally's very well attuned gaydar worked and how come it still worked.

When they'd first met, Tony had still been doing PR for the Lions, and Cally, a very straight-acting hockey bro, had shaken his hand, meeting the old team star on the first day after a trade, and said something bland. Then he'd stopped dead and smiled, very nearly winked and said, "Nice to meet you, Tony, I might hit you up for some advice some time." He'd hit him up fairly relentlessly until he was living in Tony's house and Tony had no idea how he'd called what had come before that a life.

Cally was hesitating to answer him about Charlie, but finally he said, "I think it's ― I don't want to ― Tony, I don't want you to get mad."

"Why would I be mad?" he asked, laughing. He leaned in and patted Cally on the hand. "Cally, babe, just say what you feel."

"He's like you are when you talk to me. When we're alone. Only Charlie stays like that when someone else comes in the room."

"Oh. Oh, I see."

"See! Now you're pissed off. I just mean, like how you look at me, where you look. How relaxed you are. Then you get all tensed up and act super serious."

"No, I'm not mad, Cally, but I know what you mean. I get it." He rubbed his temples and contemplated half an hour explaining what it was like to be gay in hockey. That could wait, he decided, in favour of the bigger issue. "Charlie is right to be a little worried for you. You are famous, in a way. Not every person follows the game, but people will know you, and you aren't out. And if you stay the way you are right now, Cally, you will be outed in a hurry."

"Is that bad?" Cally asked. "I like being honest. I like when people trust me and tell me the truth. You tell me things straight, Tony." Tony waited out Cally laughing at his own joke which he found hilarious. He was maybe a little wired on too much over stimulation if Tony was any judge.

"It's not bad," Tony said, "It's just maybe one more problem you don't need. Or complication maybe, not a problem."

"So you want me to be more like you are? Serious and stuff?"

Tony did not know what to say. He had no idea. How could he teach Cally to do that straight bro act he'd worn like a coat most of the time? Did he even want to? "Cally I love you how you are, that's all I know. But I don't want you to make choices now you'll regret later."

"I'll try to be serious, Tony. But when it's just us, I want to touch you and stuff."

"Hey, not just when it's us." Tony stood up and came closer, and he had Cally instantly wrapped around him, arms and legs, and the hospital gown was really not up to that position. He took Cally's face in his hands and looked down at the watery coloured blue eyes he loved, the face he loved. "When you need it, whenever. If this all gets to be too hard. Hospitals and tests, all of this. I'm here, okay?"

"Okay." Cally smiled at him, and then it faded away. He frowned, and looked very serious and not at all like the almost childishly fey man he'd woken up as that day. "You too, Tony," he said, in his taking-no-bullshit voice.

"Yes, boss," Tony said, wryly, leaning down to kiss him softly. "You are very firm about this, I see that, but you can lean on me. I can hold you up."

"You are very strong looking," Cally said, grinning impishly and running his hands over Tony's shoulders. "I was watching something on TV and there were guys, swimmers. Not as good looking as you, though."

"No?"

"Nope, I like you."

"That's good, babe. Uh," he scratched his neck and backed away a little so Cally could cross his legs again, not sure if he should tell Cally he was risking flashing the world. "You need pyjamas," he said instead.

"Oh, yeah," Cally said, plucking at the edge of the gown. "Tony, did you know I have freckles on my butt! Isn't that amazing?"

Tony laughed, almost lost control and let it become the wrong kind of laughter, the kind that let out too much tension. "Yeah, I did know that. They're cute."

"But I shouldn't show the whole world?"

"Maybe not, no."

He yanked the gown down to barely cover to the tops of his thighs and grinned, pleased with himself.

"Cally, I have your phone with me."

"Okay?" Cally said, smile fading.

"I called you parents."

"Are they upset?"

"Yeah, very. Worried about you, you know? So, I told them I'd call them tomorrow, and they are going to fly out to see you. I told them not to call you."

"Why? I can handle talking to them. I think I can, anyway. But, is it weird that I'm more interested in meeting Andy?"

Tony didn't know what wasn't weird, so he couldn't answer. "It's hard, Cally. At first. I think it will be really tough for them, but better in person. They'll see that smile and know you're doing okay, and that will help."

"Okay. I don't know how to make it better, Tony, but I don't want to hurt people's feelings."

"Cally, it just will happen. All we can do is try to understand. Take it for granted that you don't mean to."

"They said today that they have a therapist they want me to talk to."

"Yeah, babe, what about?" He rubbed Cally's back and let him lean into his body. He was hot. He always looked cold, but he never was.

"Trying to get along with people. Understanding things. I said okay because it might be good to have stuff explained more."

"Ask, babe. Ask when you don't know."

"I want to go home with you so bad."

Tony sighed, and opened his mouth to say something placating.

"But I know I can't. Sorry. I'm being a baby." Cally sighed and rubbed his face and looked deflated and defeated by life.

Cally was, in a way, only on his first day at life. A thought Tony couldn't handle, so he shoved it aside for the problem in front of his face. "Don't be sorry. None of this is your fault. I'll come tomorrow and we'll meet with the doctor and then you have your test and we can hang out after."

"Okay."

He pulled away from Cally and moved to sit beside him on the bed. Cally slung his arm around him, a move he had made countless times. Tony vividly recalled the first time. 'Can we stop pretending we're just buddies, here, Tony?' Cally had said, taking the beer out of Tony's hand, drinking half of it, and then kissing him like he really meant it.

Tony was the only person who knew that had ever happened.

"Hey," Cally said. He squeezed Tony closer, and Tony almost got up and left. Who the hell was this guy he was with? Some stranger who didn't know anything they'd ever been through. "Hey, it's okay. I'll be okay. I feel great, maybe tired again for the first time. You have to go be strong for Patty, though, right? I know that."

"How do you know that, Cally?"

"I don't know. That's the kind of question I get wrong, so don't ask me those. It's frustrating."

Cally was as much a stranger to himself as he was to Tony. He needed to remember that. He wiped his eyes and looked at him. Everything was familiar, even the frown of irritation. "It's a thing you know," Tony said, giving it the intonation of a title.

"I keep finding those. It's ― I never know when. Like just now, I knew that when your boyfriend sits close you should put your arm around him. And I was right, obviously. I feel better. You ― did it just work for me, or did it help you too, Tony?"

"No, babe. No, it worked for me too. I'm just really hard-headed sometimes and it takes longer."

Eventually, the nurses made him leave. He told himself he'd been hanging around until Cally was tired enough to sleep, but he knew the truth.

He texted Cally's parents when he got home, and then he got out the whisky, and he closed his eyes and forced his mind to re-run the tape on their new guy's first practice. Jonas Viakovsky was his name, and he was some kind of European whose parents had dragged him around from country to country because his mother was a diplomat or something. Tony couldn't even remember what language the kid spoke inside his own head. "Not a kid," he said out loud. Cally wasn't either. He was 26 and would be a free agent at the end of the next season. If he had a next season.

Jonas. Focus.

He could pass of course. He was horrible on the faceoff. He could skate, but he was a bit ragged, like he didn't work at it. Could he score well enough for the minor leagues? And what did he want out of it all? The big-time within a month or he'd go back home? Wherever the hell that was. Tony needed to find all that out.

"Hey, Dad, you okay?" Andy said, startling him enough that the kid probably thought he'd been asleep.

"I'm living," he said. "Sit down if you like." He raised his glass. "Have one, if you want."

Andy made a face of disgust and turned on one of the side lamps before he slumped into a chair opposite Tony's favourite leather recliner — the right place to contemplate disasters and new centres who might not be up to it.

Tony said, "You are the best kid ―"

"Yeah, yeah, currently in the room. I know."

Tony looked at his oldest as fondly as he wanted to and mentally toasted Cally for the lesson in how good that felt. "The old jokes are the best sometimes," he said, "and Cally knows none of them."

"Uh?"

"Sorry. Just reminding myself I have to face it."

"Dad?"

Cally didn't know the old jokes, but one of the things he did know was how to man up for the kids. Tony could man the fuck up. "I'm fine, Andy. We'll all get through this." He set his drink down and sat up straight, leaned forward, knew exactly the pose to use to earnestly tell a player they needed to work harder. "We've proved that, right? We know how tough we are when we stick together."

"Yeah, that's true. Good job, by the way, Dad. But I remember Mom telling stories about you practising your captain's speeches in front of the mirror."

"Fuck. Busted." He grinned at Andy and got the answering look he wanted. "Sometimes you fake it."

"And then one day you wake up and it's real," Andy finished.

"I need you, Andy. I need you to be strong, take a little more notice of Patty than you want to at your age. His age. But you are still my kid, my boy. You lean on me whenever you need, hard as you like."

"And Cally?"

"Cally is weirdly cool with all of this as long as doctors don't ask him questions he can't answer. Ask me again tomorrow when we have the brain scan results."

"Can I go see him?"

"You want to?"

"I'm not sure," Andy said, frowning.

They weren't close, hadn't been close. By the time Cally had moved in, Andy had been in his last year of high school and barely came around on weekends. The frequency had picked up again in his second year in college now that his hockey season had fizzled out on him, but Tony didn't know if Andy had been resentful of Cally before or just really busy.

"Exams are next? I remember that's how this works," Tony said.

Andy nodded. "I have a week off from classes in March, and I need to study. Make up for the shit I let slide for hockey. I want to take a class this summer semester too."

"Just one?"

"Yeah, me and Loofer, we talked to the older guys and they talked us out of trying two. They said you have to commit to training harder for your third year, and there's a dumb amount of stuff around ― hockey camps and things, and maybe me and Loofer aren't in on a lot of that, but maybe some of it."

Andy hadn't been drafted when he was 18, and he was heading into his third summer of being not good enough for that exalted list of teenage hockey players. He wasn't quite, which was harder to stomach than not at all sometimes. But there were other ways into the game, and not every guy in the NHL got there the easy way.

"You want to commit hard to that training," Tony said.

"I am. I really am. But knocking off one class now will make the commitment to the game next year easier. Mom wants a vacation, but maybe she'll have to take no for an answer on that this time."

"I'll talk to her," Tony said. His guts clenched because he might be talking to her about Cally some day soon. Dealing with Andy's drive for independence was easy compared to that prospect. Andy had wanted to skip the family trip the previous year and his mother had won him over. He'd half talked like it was that that kept him on the bench in what should have been his breakout year.

"Tomorrow, dad?" Andy said, standing up. "I'll go and visit."

"Yeah, if you want. It's weird. But he's a very nice guy, still Cally, a good man. He said he wanted to meet you."

"Meet me, geez."

"Yeah. Decide in the morning. He can have visitors at ten, and then they are taking him in for the CT scan at eleven. I'll hang around and wait for the results. Visiting hours don't start up again until two."

He watched Andy go back to his room, and went back to trying to cope. He did a little tour of the house about an hour later — checked on Pat, checked on Andy. He hadn't done that since they were much younger, and they gave him knowing looks.

He surveyed his bed once he had finally finished the whisky and decided to try to sleep. The sheets were a mess from that morning, and there was a half-full bottle of green Gatorade on the nightstand.

He set it to rights and ultimately slept because one good thing hockey taught you was how to take your opportunities when they were in front of you. He needed the rest, so he slept.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony looked like hell to his own eyes in the morning so he shaved carefully and made his hair lie smooth. It made him look like a well-groomed madman, but it was all he could do.

He put on the two-thirds of a suit that was a standard hockey ops look ― dress pants, fitted golf shirt and jacket. He wanted to look like the grownup, and he wanted to intimidate a little if he needed to. He put on the biggest chunk of stainless steel watch he owned and skipped breakfast because he was afraid he'd puke.

He walked into Cally's hospital room and found a man unchanged from the day before.

"Tony!" Cally said, and then he tilted his head and looked him over. "I feel like I should call you sir." He broke out into peals of laughter and flushed a little, once the sexual implications of that had drifted into his mind. Tony could tell they had by his reaction. It was oddly comforting that something so absurd was still in there.

One day, long before they'd lived together, Tony had broken down and told Cally he was worried about the age difference, that he was taking advantage of Cally in some way. "Tony," Cally had said, deadly seriously, gripping his arms in a hard hold and looking down at him. "I'm not calling you daddy in bed, so forget that." Tony had had to kiss the smirk off Cally's face after.

The new Cally just wanted a hug. And to lean into Tony's hand when he touched Cally's face.

"Are you nervous?" Tony asked, sitting in the chair and stretching out his legs to look relaxed. Cally didn't know the old jokes, and he didn't know how to see through Tony's tricks.

"Sort of. I figured out how to look stuff up on my phone, and none of it made sense. I think ― the doctor, Ingles, he said this is rare what I have. I think I didn't know before what he meant, but I can't find anything that makes sense about this. I read what a CT scan is, and now I'm less worried."

"Andy was thinking he'd like to come meet you before he takes Pat home."

"Yeah? Can he come now?"

"After we have the test results, we decided. He needs to do some schoolwork, and I think I'm being overprotective, but I didn't want to leave Pat alone."

"Why is he Pat sometimes and other times Patty? I was trying to figure it out, but I can't."

Tony laughed and tried to explain how it worked, and how it had all started because Pat had been jealous as a little boy that Andy had a nickname but they'd called him Patrick.

"Guess what the guys call him?" Tony said. It was kind of a test if he was being very honest, and kind of just a shot in the dark.

"Not Patty? That's the rules, right. It's," he frowned. "Add a 'y' or 'er' or shorten it and add an 's'. Seany or Seans doesn't work, so you use the last name."

"Jesus," Tony said. "You remember the rules for hockey nicknames?"

"No, not ― it's a thing I know. Remembering is totally different."

"How?"

"I have to figure it out, like think about it for things I know. But memories have colours and touches and feelings. I can feel your hands on my face if I think about you. It's really cool. So the other guys don't call him Patty?"

"No, they don't. They call him Tricky."

"Oh, that's bad," Cally said, seriously. "That's really bad. Is Andy 'Drewy' then or something?"

"Naw. Andy is Greener."

"I ― maybe that's better?" Cally said, and then the smile dropped off his face, and he was a very serious man suddenly.

Tony turned and saw Ingles and a nurse, not Charlie, a woman he didn't know, and another male doctor. Tony stood up. He would have barked if he'd been a dog.

The second doctor was called Jameson, and he didn't speak to Tony at all, unlike Ingles who only did. After Ingles described the procedure, Jameson began to describe the types of memory loss, and it slowly dawned on Tony that he was expressing the opinion that Cally was faking it in some way or was psychologically damaged or something.

"Doctor," Tony said sharply, interrupting him. "If the CT scan will help answer these questions, why are we speculating on this now?"

"It is best for the patient to fully understand the limitations of neurology. Often they feel as though the science of modern medicine knows all, but the mind is a complex thing ―"

"Cally? Do you know what a neurologist is?" Tony asked.

"Sure, it's a brain doctor."

"And Jameson?"

"He just talks to me," Cally said. "And writes down stuff different from what I said."

"It is time to prepare Mr McCallum for the procedure, doctors," the nurse said firmly, stopping Tony's argument that they were overloading Cally in its tracks. But it got him what he wanted, so he took it. She ushered the doctors out of the room, and then turned a stern gaze on Tony.

"I have to go wait in purgatory," Tony said to Cally. "So when you're back, the nurse will get me and we can hang out."

"Okay," Cally said. "Time to man the fuck up and just get this done."

"That's the spirit," the nurse said, and Tony went to the waiting room and sent a text to Josh McCallum that got no reply. He looked at his watch, which was dumb when his phone was in his hand, but it was an old habit. Cally's parents should have been up even on a Sunday. It was almost eight in the morning there.

The scan took half the time he'd expected. The nurse came and took him back to Cally and told them it might be some time before the doctor was free to look at the results and discuss it with them. There was a lot of staff around for a Sunday, it seemed to Tony, and the nurse hurried away like she had several things to do at once. He watched her briskly stride out the door and away down the hall.

"They have two patients they need to find rooms for," Cally said. "I heard them talking."

Tony turned back to him and felt light suddenly, like it would be okay. He had no idea why. Maybe he'd just run out of the ability to worry. "Do you mind if I text the boys and check my messages?"

"No? Should I?" Cally pulled his legs up into a sprawl and patted the end of the bed, so Tony sat where Cally obviously wanted him.

"It's rude."

"So? I know that, by the way, but you're ― should you worry about that with me?"

"No, Cally, I guess not," he said absently. "This makes no sense. Your parents say they are in Chicago and that they'll text me details, but that's it."

"O'Hare," Cally said.

Tony looked up at him, and Cally rolled his eyes. "Vancouver to New York goes through O'Hare usually."

"This is a thing you know?"

Cally shrugged. "I want to know if my brain is damaged."

"You aren't damaged."

"I'm not normal."

"Cally, there's no such thing as normal, not really." Tony shoved up his left sleeve and extended his arm. "Can you see that?"

Cally leaned over and found the faint scar on his arm.

"I busted it when I was a kid, and they put a pin in it. Am I bone damaged? You are fine. You don't know as much as you used to. That's it."

The doctors came after a long hour of Cally fiddling on his phone and not wanting to talk.

Ingles took the guest chair and collapsed into it like he'd played four extra shifts in every game for a month. "Gentlemen," he said. "I've had a chance to review the results, and there are no surprises."

He outlined the state of Cally's brain ― showing signs of past swelling, but not severe ― and the state of the area of his brain where the memories were supposed to be. "We are seeing some signs of damage. Frankly, a CT scan is not enough to really pinpoint the extent, and we will want an MRI. Likely next week before that will get done. The purpose there is to set a baseline as we move forward with rehabilitation. We'll need to see if things change. But the MRI is unlikely to change anything about the diagnosis."

"And the swelling is going away?" Tony asked. He was still holding his phone, and Cally was staring down at his hands. They weren't touching at all. He reached out and put his hand on Cally's bare knee and squeezed.

"The CT scan doesn't tell us that, but I feel safe in assuming it from Sean's white cell count and physical state. If we had no other symptoms, we'd consider his blood work now nearly normal. If we order an MRI for as soon as possible ― I'm not sure when it will be, it has to be done in New Haven ― we'll have a comparison, and if I see anything that worries me, I'll deal with it."

"So I'm okay now? I'm not going to suddenly get worse?" Cally said, sounding relieved and worried, and Tony had never even considered that idea. He'd been too busy dealing with the problem in front of him.

"There is no reason to think any further damage will happen. The future ― your future," Ingles said, looking at Cally for the first time like he was an adult, "is difficult to predict."

Ingles outlined the possible ways Cally could get better and the ways he might not, and he emphasized that their short-term focus was just making sure they were coping with his condition.

"That is not my area," Ingles said. "That's the job of therapists and psychologists, and you yourself more than anything else. The nurse is going to talk to you about setting all that up before you leave."

"Leave?" Cally said, head snapping up. "I can go home? Now? Today?"

"The truth is we need the bed. And there's nothing actually wrong with you that we can fix."

Tony was stunned. He had somehow foreseen a long stay in the hospital, but Cally really was fine, and he was obviously very happy with the news.

Ingles got up and left as suddenly as he appeared, and the nurse showed up while Cally was hauling out his suitcase and setting out clothes while saying, "I really want to wear clothes for a while, Tony."

"Can I get you to wait on that, Mr McCallum?" the nurse said.

Tony finally got her name, and Arabella, who looked like she could maybe bench more than Charlie but had a soft and soothing voice, handed them page after page of instructions, appointment information and contact details.

Cally was getting an MRI in New Haven, and she told them to assume that would be on Tuesday, but he had to come right back to the Bridgeport hospital the next day for a meeting with his caseworker where they'd go over all his therapy options.

"Can I come to that?" Tony asked.

"Usually family is allowed," Arabella said cautiously.

"Okay, I'll be blunt here. Cally has a lot of money. I have a lot of money. If we can get specialist treatment in New York or anywhere that is worth having, I want it."

Arabella looked at him for a long beat. "I'll tell the caseworker that. She might be able to recommend some places you'll want to try. In the meantime, we need to do another blood draw and normally we go over medications, but the doctors haven't prescribed anything since the last bloodwork. If you find you have trouble sleeping, talk to the caseworker about that. High levels of anxiety are normal with neurological patients."

Cally had his arm out for the blood draw like an old pro, and the nurse quickly removed the cannula when she was done and bandaged him up.

Tony decided to leave Cally to get dressed on his own, and he ducked out to check on the inevitable paperwork.

Cally appeared beside him in mostly the gear he'd arrived in, and it didn't seem odd at all to take his hand while they waited.

Driving home was weird. Cally was quiet, Tony was concentrating on driving, and maybe freaking out a little about not knowing how to handle the whole situation.

"Come, on," he said when they were in the garage. "Let me show you around a little and then you can relax. I think I have a ton of texts to handle."

"I have a thousand tons. I stopped reading because I felt like I was looking at someone else's phone or something."

"I can help you sort them out, see if there's anything important. But maybe tomorrow?"

"Okay," Cally said, and he got out of the car first. "Show me stuff. I want a shower, though. Hospital wouldn't let me."

The house was half dark and mostly quiet, the sound of thumping coming from upstairs that said a game of some kind was underway. Andy had good headphones, but short of tying him down, you couldn't stop him from banging his feet while he played.

He showed Cally the kitchen, the living room, and the door to the backyard, not that anyone wanted to go out in the cold in February. "Kids rooms are up there, and the master bedroom ― you likely remember."

"Yeah," Cally said. "I do. It was warm and cozy and kind of dark."

"Come on, the bathroom is there, and I'll show you where your clothes are."

It felt odd, like he was showing a guest around, and it freaked him out a little more.

"If you can't find anything," he said, leaving Cally at the doorway to the bathroom. "I'll just be — I need to tell the kids what's going on, find out when they are driving back."

"Okay. Um. Tony?"

"Yeah, Cally?" Tony said.

"I'm really hungry."

"Of course you are, you're Cally," he said absently and then stopped and had to take a moment to get himself under control because he was Cally, but he needed to be shown his own underwear drawer. "I'll get the boys to make supper appear for us early," Tony said.

He found the boys and told them Cally was home and that he had no answers for their million questions about how it would work. "Just come downstairs and order dinner, get enough for all of us, and you can meet him. Or he can meet you or whatever the hell we're all doing here."

He stomped off downstairs and left the whisky bottle where it was.

The boys followed him, and they leaned on various counters in the kitchen and stared at each other. No one had any answers. Tony should have just phoned for a pizza, but instead, he said to Andy, "You can drive Patty home to your mom's?"

"Yeah, Dad," Andy said. "We've got it sorted out. He has first class at nine, so we're going in the morning, and I'll drop his stuff off at home before I hit my first class at eleven."

"Must be nice," Pat muttered.

"I am not dumb, Pattycakes, I set that schedule up on purpose."

"I think you should go tonight," Tony said.

"Nope," Andy said, shaking his head. "I said it was sorted out. Mom knows. I checked the weather. We're going at exactly 7:30 in case there is traffic. Tonight we're staying here to help you out."

His authoritative tone just crawled right up Tony's back and raised every hackle. "I'm not the kid here. It is winter, and you need to be taking school seriously."

"We thought you'd be alone!" Andy said, voice rising to meet Tony's, chin coming up in a familiar way.

"So what?" Tony exploded.

"Guys, Jesus. Calm down," Pat said.

"I am calm," Tony said, loud enough to earn him the scoffing he got.

"Okay," Tony said, finding his control and gesturing at Andy. "If I didn't know where you got the attitude from, I'd tell you to fuck off."

"He even sounds like you," Pat said and snickered, which started them all laughing.

"Are you guys fighting? I can't tell?" Cally said from the doorway.

Tony spun around, warned by the look on Andy's face. Cally had found a t-shirt in a bright shade of acid green, printed with a design of orange and yellow. He'd bought it as a joke on vacation months before. He also had on his usual baggy shorts and no socks. The t-shirt was tight enough to show off his body well, once you got past the colour.

"Wow," Tony said.

Cally stood up tall and ran his hand down his own abs, just like he had with the leather coat. "Isn't this great? I was happy to be home. Really happy to have a shower, and this was the happiest thing I could find. I have a lot of clothes, Tony."

"You do, that is true."

"I don't think orange is my colour, though, but it's so funny, I left it on. Can I meet Andy, or do you guys need to yell more?"

Tony stepped out of the way so Cally could see Andy, and Cally immediately moved forward, a smile on his face that was polite and interested but nothing more. It was replaced with a look of wonder and some more complicated things, too much at once for Tony to guess at. "You guys look so much alike. I feel like I'm the only big orange guy in a crowd of, I don't know!"

"Little half-French, half-Italian guys," Pat said, and Cally turned his attention to him.

"I remember you. I met you when I was still really sick, and you were nice to me. But I want to shake hands with Andy if that's okay? Maybe that seems weird to you?"

"It's all weird, to be honest," Andy said.

"Yeah, sorry, I ― "

"Don't be. Don't. It's not anyone's fault." Andy stood up tall and held out his hand and let Cally shake like they'd never met before.

"I want a picture," Cally said. "One of the doctors when they asked me stuff, she said something about taking a snapshot. Like your memory is like that. I figured out how to make my phone do that instead."

"You want a picture of me?" Andy said dubiously.

"All of you guys." Cally made a motion with his arms, and they all obeyed him, moved into place. Tony wrapped his arms around his boys and tried to smile.

"If you don't start looking happy soon, Tony, my arm will fall off waiting," Cally said, staring intently at the image on his phone, not his actual subjects. "Think of something funny."

"That shirt is pretty funny," Pat said, and Cally nodded seriously.

"That worked!" Cally took the photo and then demanded to know when supper was.

"We haven't ordered yet. Too busy arguing," Tony said. "What do you want?"

"Meat," Cally said intently, and everyone laughed. "What?"

"Of course you do, Cally, you're you," Pat said and started tapping away on his own phone and tilting it for his brother to look at.

"You said that like that means something. People do that. The 'and you know what I mean by that' tone." Cally really exaggerated the tone, and the kids laughed at him again. "I don't always get it," he added.

"You have that body to maintain, is all," Andy said.

"You have a reputation as a big eater," Tony explained. "Come on, they can be trusted to get us food, let's go sit down."

"Okay."

It was natural for Tony to fall into his usual chair, and for Cally to take the sofa opposite. "You okay?" Tony asked after they'd sat silently for longer than was normal for the new Cally.

Cally shrugged. "I don't like it that Andy is sort of freaked out. I don't ― why do I like him anyway? I don't know so many things. I guess I'm only realizing that now. Is it because they look like you?"

"I don't know, Cally." Tony almost asked Cally why he liked him, but he was afraid the answer was because he was there and he was nice to him.

"I do, though. I like both of them. I feel that. I met people in the hospital, all kinds of them, and I didn't feel that. Fuck, the hospital."

Tony got up and went to sit beside him, rubbed his leg a little, feeling the familiar sensation of his light body hair. He could see freckles even in the low light. All of it was exactly how it had always been. "What's up?"

"I hate the talking parts. Tomorrow, this caseworker thing. It will be more talking. Your brain is broken, Sean. You don't work right, Sean. Why do you think that, Sean? Who told you that, Sean? I fucking hate it."

"Is this that Jameson guy? Because he got on my hump. We can find someone who isn't a tool. Someone you like."

"We can?" Cally said, and sat up straight and stared like that was a revelation.

"Yeah, you can ― fuck, that's me." Tony grabbed his phone and wasn't all that surprised to finally have a new message from Josh McCallum.

They were leaving Chicago in the morning after a cancelled flight and they'd be in New York by the early afternoon. Tony sent back their hospital itinerary, the directions to his house and then had to explain that Cally had been released. They were as shocked as he'd been. That shock had worn off to be replaced by worry, worry over everything he had no time to do. He started to tell Cally about his parents, but the food came and he let it drop during dinner.

Cally discovered that if he asked Andy and Pat questions, they'd explain things to him in the seemingly inexhaustible way of teenage boys who liked to show off what they knew. He had their full life stories out of them while they ate ― where they went to school, what subjects they took, what New Haven was like.

They discovered how easy Cally was to make laugh and how enthusiastic he was about the smallest pleasure. Andy kept casting looks Tony's way when he was smiling fondly at his man gushing over the fairly ordinary meal as the best he'd ever had. He raised a brow at Andy, and his son shrugged at him.

It was weird. And he could be upset that Cally didn't remember the first time they ever went out together or the time Tony had asked him, terrified, to move in, and Cally had blushed bright red as he'd said yes. He could wallow in that or he could try to just take the hit and enjoy his man laughing over something Pat said like it was the funniest joke he'd ever heard. Maybe it was. Life would kick Cally in the balls soon enough, he was sure of that.

"So," Andy said when dinner was done. "I was going to go read a chapter, but I'm pretty caught up, so what about watching a game?"

"A hockey game?" Cally asked, wrinkling his nose.

"Yeah. That's a thing you know, right?" Andy said.

"Kind of. This guy in the hospital, not Charlie, the other man who works the night shift, he was a big fan and he kept talking about it, stuff I'd done or whatever. I didn't like him."

"Did you get what he was saying?" Tony asked. "I mean, did it make sense to you, not did you remember."

"Sort of. I ― you guys all like it, right? Hockey? It's a little weird being here and you guys are all so much alike and I'm not. I don't look like you or anything, and I think I talk differently."

"Canadian, eh," Pat said, and laughed.

"Shut up," Cally said, gently. "Okay, show me this hockey stuff you all love, but I reserve the right to hate it."

"Oh, come on, you can't do that! You can't, can you?" Cally said looking around. He was on the edge of his seat, arms raised in disgust as Ty Spencer was sprawled on the ice after a bit of a trip from Kevin Ellis. Cally hated Ty Spencer's every molecule. It was both hilarious and disturbing to see him outraged on his behalf.

"So, 'the ref is always wrong' is a thing you know," Andy said, amused.

Cally nodded. "Also, the guy on the ground, number 34, he wouldn't be on the ground if he'd been able to deke around that bad guy. That bad guy makes me mad, though."

Tony started laughing, and Cally turned the full force of his hottest glare on him.

"Cally, babe, that bad guy was your best friend when you were fifteen. I've heard so many fucking stories about you and him out in Vancouver, I almost feel like he's part of the family."

"Really? Wow. Really? Like a guy on the TV is my friend?"

"Yeah."

"I play this hockey!" Cally said pointing at the screen.

"You do, babe. You're very good. I'd say fantastic, but I'm biased."

"Oh, right, because you love me, right."

Andy almost choked on his soft drink at that casual statement.

Cally wasn't done having revelations. "Wait! Don't these guys make a lot of money?"

Tony sighed and explained exactly how much money Cally made, and then had to talk him down from terror that the Lions would be angry with him for costing them so much when he couldn't play.

There was just so much to explain, and only so many hours in the day. He hadn't looked at work emails, he hadn't gone through Cally's phone with him, he hadn't called the team or his agent or read most of the texts and emails he'd gotten since they'd been home.

"Tony?" Cally said softly.

"I'm cool."

"He's not, he's worrying about everything," Andy said, not taking his eyes off the game.

"There is a lot to worry about," Tony snapped.

"Can't worry the puck in the net," Pat said.

Cally loved that line and repeated it a few times. "Tony, can I help you with worrying? Pick something, and I'll worry about that one thing."

Tony looked at his man, still in there, still caring, still the same, and totally different at the same time. "Two things," Tony said. "Because I think you can handle them. Figure out how to keep track of your hospital appointments and shit on your phone, and then figure out a way to lose that shirt."

"Tony!" Cally said, mock outraged. "This shirt is funny! I love it. I'm wearing it all the time now. And that's a good idea. I seem to be good at phone stuff."

"What we'll do is sit down tomorrow with coffee after the boys leave, and we'll work through everything we can before lunch and then the hospital appointment. All the emails and messages and calls. And I'll have to explain a million things to you, so we'll just take as long as it takes."

"Okay. There's another shirt I found that's pretty happy too. I'll wear that to cheer you up."

"Cally, you are so considerate."

"Okay, that was one of those tones that says you mean something. I think I get that one, though." He looked so delighted, Tony wondered how hard it would be to find him some more obnoxiously coloured t-shirts so tight they rippled over his abs.

Cally got tired quicker than he should have, but stress could sneak up on you. And the hospital was going to run another blood test the next day to make sure the white cell count was down where it needed to be. Tony needed to relax and stop expecting another disaster.

"Early morning, Pattycakes," Andy said when the game they were watching had limped to a close. It hadn't been much of a game in the third period.

The boys went up to bed, and Cally looked ready to crash. It was quiet and nearly dark in the house when Tony clicked off the TV. "Ready for bed?"

"Yeah. Tired."

Tony followed him to the bedroom and then sat on the bed and considered things while Cally used the bathroom. He took his turn and looked at his face in the mirror and knew what he needed to do.

He came out to find Cally with three drawers open in the dresser and a confused look on his face. "Pyjamas are a thing, right?"

"You aren't really a sleep in clothes guy. You're always hot."

"Oh, yeah. I was in the hospital. Wanted to take the gown off, and they said no."

"Cally, babe, come over here, so we can talk."

"That sounds scary."

He came and sat on the side of the bed, and it wasn't so different from when they'd been in the hospital facing up to things.

Tony, took his hand and said, "Cally, you can be by yourself whenever you want to be. I feel like I should tell you that. Make sure you know that."

"Okay. But, Tony, I was alone in the hospital, bored, and I had to watch TV I didn't really understand, and all I wanted was you."

His heart beat faster to hear that. He flushed. He wanted that to be real, to mean something. He could just believe it so easy. "You don't even know me, Cally. I could be anyone. And if you want me to sleep in another room, you just have to say. I need you to feel safe. I ― "

"Tony," Cally said softly, fingers over Tony's lips. "What do I need to know? Tell me? Who are you if you aren't someone I love?"

"I'm not perfect, Cally."

"No, you yell too much and you worry too much and you swear a lot watching hockey, Tony. A lot."

He laughed like Cally wanted him to and ducked his head. He'd resisted Cally for what had seemed like a long time, at the time. But in truth, it had only been a few weeks before he'd given up caring that the man, the very young man, who was pursuing him was playing for the same bosses Tony worked for. The taste of his mouth the first time, Tony believed he could remember that. But he wasn't sure what they'd eaten for dinner that first night when they'd gone out in New York, close enough for an evening of fun, far enough away for privacy. "I don't remember what I ordered the first time we went out for real, on a date."

"No? People forget stuff really easy? Am I going to forget things like that?"

Tony looked up at Cally, who was frowning down at him. That extra six inches in height had stuck in his craw for a while. "I think most people remember how they felt about things. I remember you. And being nervous and not sure about the whole idea of you and me. And wanting you anyway."

"Tony, stay here. Come to bed with me. I need you to hold me and be here when I wake up."

He couldn't say no. He didn't want to.

Cally was so open, so vulnerable, and it made Tony uncomfortable and worried and too protective. Cally was like a kid in some ways, but he was, himself, protective of Pat and Andy. It was confusing. All of it was like living in a world when everything had been turned upside down.

Tony put on a pair of boxers, the same thing Cally had ended up choosing to wear, and he got in bed on his side and turned the lights almost off, not quite. He wanted to see Cally, see he was okay.

Cally wanted to look back at him, it seemed. "I like your body, Tony. Can I ― I don't know what the rules are. Not like hockey rules that I know. Can I touch you? Just, I want to ―" He didn't finish that, he didn't really wait for an okay, but Tony was a beat behind, trying to sort out what that all meant. Did he know what the rules were himself?

Cally touching his face raised a shiver in his entire body, and he rolled closer, so they were almost nose to nose.

"Patty said you guys were half-French and half-Italian. Is that why your hair is so different from mine?" Cally ran his hand over Tony's hair and then threaded his fingers through the strands.

"Yeah, I guess."

Cally had said he'd wanted to be held, like he wasn't as happy and handling everything as well as he seemed, so Tony did that, and Cally sighed into his touch and closed his eyes, a smile on his face. They slept most of the night tucked close with the light on low.

Tony woke up at about four in the morning and thought Cally looked exactly the same in sleep as he always had. He turned off the light.


	4. Chapter 4

Cally insisted Tony get up absurdly early just because he was awake. Tony grumbled at him, had his shower and got dressed, and was rewarded with Cally in a very bright blue button-up shirt and a pair of tight black jeans Tony wasn't sure he'd ever seen before. His second reward was his boys cooking bacon.

It was all a little much for seven in the morning.

"Blue is more my colour," Cally announced to the assembled sleepy people in the kitchen. "Also bacon is very tasty. I mean, I know that's not news. I think that's a thing I know, but now that I've actually had some, I can tell you that it is really, really good."

Tony grunted and got coffee.

"Dad's not a morning guy," Pat said to Cally.

"Neither are you," Andy said and they bickered about who had woken up whom the most often over their lives for this or that reason.

"I guess I don't have that anymore," Cally inserted into not so much a silence, but a brief moment when both boys had to stop arguing to breathe. "I can't hold grudges. I don't remember stuff. Like that guy in the game. Ty, you guys said. I don't know why I hate him, so I guess I don't."

"You'll build some up, don't worry," Tony told him.

"Maybe Jameson though. He's annoying as fuck."

"See?"

Cally frowned at him. "You are grumpy. I'm ignoring you until you un-grump."

"What you always used to do," Tony said.

His kids rushed to get going back to New Haven, and it was Cally that seemed the most disappointed to learn Andy might not be free to come by the next weekend. Pat insisted he'd be around, but Tony wasn't sure who the hell would be able to drive him to his game and his practice. That seemed so far away, he couldn't imagine it.

"You said we had work to do," Cally reminded him.

"Yeah. Jesus. I think we need to figure out what's important and get that done with first. I want to call Joey, and I think maybe, Cally, could you text your agent and your manager and tell them you need to talk to them? They know what's going on, but I don't think they'll really get it until they at least talk to you." He didn't think Cally's parents would get it either until they were around him for a while.

"I can do that. You make your call."

Joe was more worried about Tony than he was worried about coping without him, which was nice and wouldn't last. "Look, Joey, I left my work laptop in my office, so I'll come by and get that," he looked up at Cally frowning over his phone and wondered if it was okay to leave him alone with his parents for a while, "maybe later today. No promises. But are Steegs or Graves in the office in New Haven today, do you know?"

The Lions were playing at home for a few days, and if the GM and his assistant were in the house, Tony might bypass all the agents and managers and just set up a meeting for the next day with the brass.

Joe said they were, and Tony hung up in time to watch Cally take a call from the hospital. He sounded strange ― not the smooth, media-savvy professional athlete he was ― but when he wanted to tone down what Tony couldn't see as much other than campiness, he was just like any ordinary, young-sounding man.

"The MRI is tomorrow at nine," Cally said, after he'd ended the call. He tapped away on his phone. "I'm putting it on a calendar thing. Tell me other stuff to put in here, and I'll be in charge of remembering stuff for both of us. I've been tested, and they said I was good at it."

"Smartass," Tony said fondly. "Okay, babe ―"

Cally's phone rang again and they had a long talk on speaker with J.J. Axworthy, his agent. By the time they were done, they had a list of other things that they needed to talk about more in depth and no time to do it.

His manager called next, promptly after Axworthy had hung up. Axworthy had promised to get back to them on a meeting with the team. Tillburg, the manager, didn't care about the team, he was in charge of Cally's money.

"I just don't understand all this money stuff," Cally said in frustration.

"Maybe we should meet," Tillburg said. Tony had met him once ever, and he'd seemed dull and competent. Not the sort to do anything strange with Cally's money, but not the sharp type to make him really wealthy either.

"Okay, but, Mr Tillburg, the thing is, sometimes you have to stop and explain stuff. Like maybe stuff you've told me before, but other things, I just know. It's hard. I don't always know what I know until it's in front of me."

"So plan for this to take time?"

"Yeah. Sorry."

"I'll come by your house next week. I have to be in New York anyway for other meetings. I'll text you a time, and you let me know if it won't work. We'll sort something out."

"Next weeks seems forever from now," Cally said, filling in something in his calendar again after he'd hung up.

"Yeah," Tony said with feeling.

"Tony, I have a question."

"Sure, babe."

"Where do I put my clothes when I take them off?"

Tony almost laughed, more at himself than Cally, but they ended up taking a second tour of the house where Tony explained how things worked — the laundry bag, the dry cleaning bag, where the towels were, the soap. He showed Cally the alarm system, the garage door opener, the weird lights for the backyard that ran off of a switch inside a closet.

The microwave and the coffee pot were their final destination, so they just made coffee and then left their phones on the table while they sat in the small sitting room off of the kitchen that Cally was fascinated by. They'd never used it much before, and Tony had let a decorator fill it with furniture and ignored it.

"I think it's for people who cook stuff a lot," Cally said. "So you don't burn things." He'd claimed first it was for snuggling since the only seating was two loveseats.

"Maybe."

"You're all tense and stuff, Tony."

"Yeah."

"I'm nervous about meeting my parents."

"Yeah. So am I," Tony said, almost laughing. "But no one on earth loves you like they do. It's just not something you can ever replace."

"Like you and the boys."

"Yeah, like that."

"Okay. That helps."

They left for the hospital, leaving behind a lot of tasks undone, but the meeting with the caseworker was more useful than Tony had expected.

She led them to a small office and doled out a lot of practical advice on dealing with Cally's condition. "I'll be honest with you both," she said, "usually our patients are older and suffering from the early signs of dementia. The occasional brain injury patient is usually also dealing with physical trauma, sometimes extreme. When you need to relearn how to walk, memory loss becomes something you don't focus on."

"I don't really focus on it either," Cally said. "I don't know what's not there. Not usually. It's other people who care. I don't like thinking of myself as damaged, though. Tony says I'm not, but when they show you the scan and say, here's where it's busted, it's hard not to feel like it."

"What's your biggest challenge?" she asked. "Right now, what do you need solved?"

"Um," Cally rubbed at his face and glanced at Tony and away. "My parents are coming. I don't know how to talk to them. Tony and I, we made a rule that we just know we're going to hurt each other's feelings, and we have to just take the hit. I don't know. I worry that maybe my parents aren't the same as us like that. I'm not sure."

"That's an interesting coping strategy, Mr Grenier."

"Kids, divorce, hockey — it teaches you strange things," Tony said.

"Are you a coach?"

"Sort of. My title is player development, and that means helping players grow up as men, not just as players. We have younger guys, guys from other countries. They face a lot of challenges." He shrugged.

"So you've had experience dealing with people who don't speak English well or don't understand the culture well?"

"Sure. Some Russian still knows what his mom looks like, though. Not really the same."

"No," she said, "not totally different either. Sean, you will need to undergo general cognitive testing as well as memory testing. We will start setting up these sessions in a way that will let you visit a therapist at the same time. We call these occupational therapists, but in your case, it's more of a life skills coach."

"Cognitive testing?" Tony asked.

Cally interrupted with, "I have life skills. I can do normal things. I need some help sometimes, but I can look after myself fine."

"Can you drive a car, Sean?" she asked as if she was giving him a quiz.

"Yes," he said and then paused. "Maybe. I feel like I know how."

"There are many things that you might need to relearn or just be helped with. You will need to retake your driving test, however. Cognitive testing, Mr Grenier, is something that we will do mostly to tell us what I think we already know. Sean's doctors don't believe there was any damage to any parts of the brain that govern anything but long-term memory. But, I'll be blunt here, and I hope you won't be upset if this hurts feelings. Sean, like a lot of memory-challenged patients, has an affect that can be confused for someone with impairment of mental faculties."

"What?" Cally said. "Did she just say I seem like I'm, shit ― I only know bad words for that."

"And yet," she said, "you know they are bad words, Sean. Interesting. That's actually part of the testing, to see if you understand that kind of concept. To me you seem like a man under some stress and newly released into a world you haven't got the right map for. But I'm used to seeing patients lose their inhibitions and socialization as their memories fade. Other people aren't."

Tony looked at Cally, who he thought seemed younger, gayer, definitely a lot gayer, and also happy. He wasn't so sure he wanted someone teaching him to be a miserable asshole just so everyone else would feel comfortable around him. Cally had always dropped that hockey bro act really fast in private, and that had made Tony feel like he'd found someone he could be himself with. But he hadn't understood how it would feel to have that man around all the time.

"This is just more questions, then," Cally said forlornly. "Okay, sign me up for questions. And life skills, but I think Tony does that fine."

"Tony may not be around all the time," the caseworker said absently, typing information into her computer.

Cally looked at him ruefully. "Not enough hours in the day."

"Is there anything we should be doing to ―" Tony stopped frustrated. "This is all coping. Is there therapy to help him get better?"

"The MRI might tell us if that is an area we should be investigating. Time and some repeated tests of his memory function might answer that as well. But while we have therapies for patients with memory loss, most of them ― Mr. Grenier, nearly all of them ― are aimed at coping. And beyond coping, living a full life."

"The doctor said something about brain plasticity."

"I think you should talk to the neurologist in New Haven tomorrow when you have the MRI. And if you want a list of specialists ― mostly in New York — I'll give you that. But every day comes along and has challenges Sean needs to face. We are in coping mode for now because we need to be." She crossed her hands on her desk and looked at them very seriously. "Now, gentlemen, I have to discuss something. I've scheduled the cognitive tests for the day after tomorrow, and I know that's a lot in a few days, but there's a reason for that. You are not legally married. If someone wanted to challenge Sean's competency, they might get a judge to temporarily order him placed in the care of the court while a court-appointed person administered the same tests we can do here."

"Get it done, and it can't be a problem?" Tony said.

"Yes, and it might be a good idea ― your medical information is confidential, Sean, the only reason Mr Grenier is here with you is because you consented to have him sit in. You don't have to tell anyone this test is scheduled. Get it done, get the results that say you are competent to manage your own affairs, and you will not have to worry."

"My manager said something about that, Tony, about if he should get you to give him a power of attorney."

"Manager?" the caseworker asked.

"Yeah," Cally said. "It turns out, when they pay you lots of money for hockey, you pay some other guy to look after it. It's a lot of work having money. I have a charitable foundation too, but it's for a children's hospital in Kansas, I'm not sure why."

"You used to play there, Cally," Tony told him.

"Oh, that makes sense. I seem to like kids. Your kids, anyway."

"In that case, Sean," the caseworker said, "I would very much advise you to not tell anyone, including your manager, about this testing until it's done."

Cally nodded like he understood, and Tony left it at that, another thing on the list he might have to explain.

They sat in the car in the hospital parking lot checking phones. "Your parents are in New York, and they say they are driving up in a rental car and getting a hotel. So that might take ― I don't even know, depends on the traffic. You need anything? Should we just go home?"

"Is it wrong that I just want to go home and get in bed with you and hide?" Cally sighed. "That is wrong. I have to face up to things."

"Usually you do, yeah."

They drove home, and Cally spent time reading the things the hospital had given him and inputting appointments into his phone. He was starting to accumulate paperwork and odds and ends in his favourite room off the kitchen, and Tony wondered if he should move a bookcase or a desk in there.

"Do they say how long that MRI takes?" Tony asked.

"Nope."

"Figures."

"I have a text from my agent saying that if we want to come by the New Haven office, we should just show up tomorrow. Do we want to do that?"

"I think we have to," Tony said. "I don't think the team got the full picture from Koss."

"You think he lied?" Cally asked, very surprised, as if the idea of lies of omission had never crossed his mind. Koss would be admitting he missed a serious illness if he filled the team in fully.

"Seeing is understanding in this case, and you should meet these guys who run the team. They have a lot of influence over your future."

"What do you mean?"

"Cally, if you can play the game again, I ―"

The doorbell rang, so there wasn't going to be any advanced warning that Josh and Donna were there. In compensation, Tony got to put off figuring out how to tell Cally that he needed to keep the Lions management from deciding he was a lost cause if he ever wanted back on the ice. Tony went and answered the door to the McCallums and shook hands like they were in his office, not his house. He led them into the living room and turned and saw Cally standing tentatively in the doorway that led down a short hall to his room off the kitchen.

"Oh, Sean," Donna said and slapped her hand over her mouth as if that could stop them from seeing she was crying.

"Son," Josh said, "you look fine."

"I am," Cally said firmly, eyes darting to his mother and then settling on Josh. Any hope they might all have had that he was going to suddenly remember them was killed dead by his nervous confusion. "I am okay. I think. I know this is weird, Andy said that, and I've thought about it. I get what he meant."

"Andy is ― Tony's son?" Josh said.

"Yeah? Don't you guys know that? Andy is in college and Pat is in high school still. They helped me learn what this is like for people who know me. I'm sorry it's so hard. I'm still new at this."

"Why don't we sit down," Tony said. "Try to relax. Do you want coffee?" He wasn't surprised to hear they did since it got him out of the room.

They settled in the living room, and he headed for the kitchen. He could hear them well enough; Cally had his 'trying to be cheerful' voice on full. It was what he used for the doctors or nurses he liked.

Tony went back in with the coffee on a tray he'd found in the kitchen, set it on a table, and let them help themselves.

"I just realized, Tony," Cally said, genuinely happy-sounding, "that they look like me!"

Tony had to smile at him, charmed as he always was by Cally's enjoyment of every new thing he found.

Josh was almost as tall as Cally, his hair was more sandy brown, but his face showed freckles. Donna had the same rose-red hair, skin that flushed at any provocation, and soft blue eyes.

"You look like them," Tony said, picking a chair to sit in.

"Yeah. Same thing." Cally turned his sunniest smile on his parents, and it seemed to make them less relaxed not more.

"Can we hear about what the doctors are saying?" Josh said, looking from Cally to Tony and finally settling on Tony.

"Cally can tell you," he said, sipping his coffee like this was all just a friendly get together.

"The doctors say 'I don't know' a lot, but they never use those actual words. It took me a while to get it," Cally said. "Not like I can complain, though, right? I say that more than anything."

"Oh, Sean," Donna said. "This is so terrible, I don't know what to do."

"It's not to me," Cally said almost too brightly. "I get that it's weird for you, but it's normal for me. I don't like it when they say my brain is damaged. I was upset a little after the CT scan ― that's a thing where they X-ray your head. I don't know if that's a thing everyone knows or not."

"What did it show?" Josh asked intently.

"They said it confirmed their diagnosis. One part of my brain is cut off. They said to imagine an apartment building full of people, but there's no roads to it anymore. That's what they said. That maybe most of my memories are there. I just can't get to them."

"Can't they operate? There's so much they can do now, this hospital, this is small town stuff right? If we get you to a real hospital, we might get to the bottom of how to fix this."

Cally tilted his head and stared a little rudely at his father. "I don't know what you mean."

"Don't worry about that, Sean," Josh said, "We can find a better hospital."

Cally turned to look at Tony and made an exaggerated confused face. Tony could let it sit or he could explain it right in front of the McCallums. He wasn't sure what was the best way to go.

He figured that Josh assumed the real hospitals were in Vancouver, and that was a fight they had to have, he just didn't want to have it first thing. "He means that in a bigger city, sometimes the hospitals have more money for better equipment and doctors. That's why they're sending you to New Haven for the MRI and to have a different neurologist give you their opinion," Tony said.

"Okay, that's what I thought. And we have that list."

"Yup."

"What list?" Josh asked.

"I have a caseworker at the hospital, and she sets up all my appointments for therapy and whatever, and she gave us a list of specialists and places to call in New York if we want to see more doctors. But she said that for the first few days, I should focus on coping with the new reality. So I'm doing that."

"When's this MRI?" Josh asked getting out his phone, like he wanted to make a note of it.

"I keep track of it all," Cally said, a little sharply, seeing Josh poaching on his turf. "It's tomorrow morning, and Andy said it takes half an hour to drive there. He looked up some stuff about MRIs and sent me a thing on the internet where a woman explains how it feels to have one. I'm less nervous now."

"Andy did that?" Tony asked.

"Andy is great. He texts me explanations of stuff when you're busy. And then he taught me emojis because I asked if he was taking too much time away from his school and he sent me a face rolling its eyes. He said I sounded like you."

"I cannot teach you emojis," Tony said. His damn kid. Dammit, he almost needed to cry. And Cally worrying about Andy and his school work. Cally was in there, inside that smiling man who was more worried than he let anyone see; it was obvious he was there.

"I guess we can't go see him tomorrow, can we?" Cally said.

"No, not this time."

"We're going to the team office," Cally explained to Josh.

"What are they doing? Are they helping you like they should be?" Donna asked him.

"I don't know? Should they be?" Cally looked around, confused.

"They have money and access to doctors," Donna said. "What's your agent say?"

"He's kind of worried about things. He's worried about the media, which I don't really understand. We can't hide this. I can't pretend and fool people. Not like ― well, I can't do that either very well. He's afraid of things. I don't know how to explain it really."

"Tony?" Josh said. "I'm lost here. What's the story?"

Tony sighed and set down his coffee cup. "Josh, the story is that the team will have to issue some kind of press statement. They should do it right away, because if someone sees Cally in New Haven, knows him, mentions it on Twitter, it will get out. They should be getting in front of the story, and they are hesitating. I think they aren't at the acceptance stage yet, which I get, but you don't get time in this business anymore to fool around."

"Wow," Cally said. "Is that your work voice?" He was smiling and also very obviously showing Tony he approved in another way, and Tony couldn't reject that, he couldn't. Not even with his parents in the room.

"Absolutely," he said to Cally, giving him a warm look. "You let a bunch of hockey players think they run you, they'll run you."

"Is that what you're going to tell them?" Josh asked.

"I'm going to let them see Cally, let him meet them, let them get to know each other, and I'm hoping they'll have that come to Jesus moment all on their own. If they don't, that's not my job to fill them in, and you realize these guys are, in a way, my bosses. I don't report to them, and neither does Joe, who I do report to. But the power flows down from them."

Josh rubbed his forehead and stared at the floor for a long time. "I'm worried about something here, and I don't know how to say it."

"Remember the rule," Cally said, "We say things sometimes that hurt each other's feelings, but you have to know we don't mean to. I can take it."

"That's the rule?" Josh looked up, and he looked cast adrift. Tony had seen that look in the mirror a few times. He got it. No one had a drug to offer or a surgery plan. No one had anything. The coping phase might never end.

"Yeah," Cally said. "I say things sometimes because I don't know stuff. I don't know it will hurt."

"You say things you don't know will give things away, too," Josh said, sadly.

"Like secrets?" Cally said. "I don't know any of those, don't worry."

"He means," Tony said, giving up on the man finding his balls and saying it plain, "that it's really obvious you're gay."

Donna almost flinched at the word, and Tony wanted to sigh some more. Cally had always been vague about how accepting his nominally liberal, modern parents were. Maybe they were a little vague about it too.

"Yeah, I know that," Cally said. "Charlie explained that. But, I like me, and I can't be some other me anyway, I don't know how. I don't know what you want me to do."

"Just tone it down, son, that's all," Josh said.

"I don't really know what that means," Cally said. "Sorry. I know I'm frustrating, but I don't understand."

"Cally," Tony said. "I think, if you're okay with it, we should talk about this with the team. Frankly talk. This might get out. One reason I'm a little pissed off they didn't get a statement out there is that someone getting a scoop on your," he waved his hand, "fucking upper body injury, might get a bigger scoop than we're ready for."

Cally spent a very long time laughing about calling his brain injury a UBI. Josh didn't find it funny.

"That would be a disaster if this came out. It can't. Cannot," Josh said.

"Why?" Cally predictably asked, voice still full of laughter. "I ― how were we not outed before?"

"Luck," Tony said before Josh could answer. "Total luck. And we knew it might run out. Maybe it has. I don't want to deal with that now. I don't. And if we get the team to issue a press release right away ― tomorrow afternoon is my hope, that might buy us enough good feeling from the press they'll leave us alone. Look, the New Haven Lions are not big news in the big wide world. Cally will be big news in the hockey world for a few days until everyone forgets him for the next sob story. But it won't be a story with legs."

"I think we should take Sean to the hospital tomorrow," Josh said. "We are his parents."

Cally, nodded. "You guys can come, sure, but Tony is taking me."

"Sean, honey, I think you should listen to your father," Donna said.

"I did," Cally said, confused again. "I just said what we're doing, is all. Tony's my boyfriend. I love him. You guys know that, right?"

"Oh, honey, I know that's how you see it."

Cally sighed and fingered his phone. He looked stressed out, and he had aimed more than one gaze at the hallway to his hiding place.

Tony wanted to fix what was hurting him, but short of fast forwarding Josh and Donna through the first phase of denial and their search for parental control, he had no idea what to do. It was too soon to distract everyone with dinner, but they could talk about logistics of their visit, that might help.

"You've checked into a hotel?" Tony asked Josh.

"Yeah, yeah. We stopped long enough to dump the bags, that's it."

They made small talk about the hotel and the airline problems for as long as Tony could drag it out. Josh and Donna had always been fine with him if they could get to a place where they could pretend he was just a man. He was more than ten years too young to be their contemporary, but not fixed in their minds as part of their children's generation.

"We'll need to eat," Cally said, looking over at Tony. "But we shouldn't go out yet, right? That's sort of what this stuff with a press release is about. I should stay home until they do that."

"Yeah, Cally. We can order something good, though. Something new."

"Everything's new, it's one of the perks!" he smiled, sunny, and was very confused again when Donna started to sob a little.

"Donna, sweetheart," Josh said. "You could cook Sean's favourites. See if it — see if he likes it?"

"Oh, yes! I could ― we'd need a grocery store, and I don't know what's in the kitchen here. A house full of men like this, are the cupboards all empty?" she tried to laugh, and her attempt was half the job Cally could do even when he was nearly crying himself.

One of Cally's talents was putting on a good show when it needed to be put on. Usually, that had been when his team was down and needed a lift, but he was doing the same thing with his parents, or trying to. Donna wasn't as good at it.

"Make yourself at home," Tony said, waving at the kitchen. "There are things in there I don't even know what they are."

Donna went off to do that or just to be alone. Tony remembered that much from being married, that sometimes a woman wanted to be in the kitchen by herself. Sometimes she wanted to burn it to the ground, too.

"What is this therapy about?" Josh said.

"It's all different things," Cally said. "Talking. That's what it is. But they want me to learn how to understand things, learn new things, use stuff. They said at some point I have to have a new driving test, and I don't even know if I can drive."

"I don't understand this, I really don't," Josh said. "How can you not know?"

"I just don't." Cally shrugged. "We watched a hockey game, me and Tony and the boys, and I knew all sorts of things. But if you had asked before, I would have said nope."

"Really? You knew what was going on?"

"I guess? I ― the ref was really dumb. And I don't care what you guys said, Tony, that guy was mean."

Josh looked confused and a little out of sorts at the way Cally talked, and that rankled, but Tony explained to Josh what Cally meant. "Kevin Ellis laid out Ty Spencer."

"Spencer! That guy is a piece of shit," Josh said with heat.

"But it was the other guy that knocked him down, and he didn't even see it coming. Tony says this other guy is my friend, but why would I have a friend that does that?"

Tony decided to let Josh explain that one. "You played together as kids," Josh said. "I remember Kevin, he was a nice boy. Good kid."

"Oh!" Cally said. "Wait, I know this. This is like when a guy is on your team, he's like ― I don't know, your guy, and you have his back and stuff."

"Yeah," Josh said. "This is ― how do you know this, and you don't recognize your own mother? I don't ― this is all too much."

"Doctor Ingles says it's the difference between procedural memory and autobiographical memory," Cally said, and Tony watched Josh have the experience of seeing the cheerful persona drop and a serious man emerge. "So I might know how to read, but not remember reading a book. I know how to make toast ― I do, I tested that ― but I don't remember ever making toast. Or eating it. Food is so fantastic. How do people not just eat all the time?"

"I ― you get over that when you're a baby," Josh said. "You get used to things I guess. They stop seeming so amazing. Your scope changes."

"Scope? Like how?" Cally leaned in, interested, now that Josh was actually talking to him.

"Ah," Josh said and leaned back on the sofa and spread his arm along the back. "It's like when you play hockey and you start out just a little kid, playing against kids. If you're good, you learn some things, and then one day you're playing a better or older bunch of kids. The borders of what you can do grow. What you can't do, too, I guess."

"Good way to put it," Tony said. "Cally, Josh was a hockey player."

"You were? Like me, in the NHL?"

"No, Sean, no." He laughed a little rueful. "No, I was a defenceman, and I never got above the minor pro leagues."

"Like Tony's team. Wait, Tony? What's your team called?"

Tony looked at Cally and tried to keep the straightest face ever. "The Bridgeport Cubs."

Cally nodded like he did when he was receiving new information, it was a tic that Tony had started to use to tell whether Cally understood or was waiting for later to look something up. And then, suddenly Cally's face lit with glee. "Oh, I get it! That's the funniest thing ever. The Lions and the Cubs." He dissolved into laughter, loud enough his mother came out to see what the commotion was about.

Tony couldn't help but smile fondly at him. Someday he'd be cynical and jaded enough again that he would only laugh about things like that ironically. "You should have seen him eat bacon for the first time," Tony said when both his parents looked uncomfortable at Cally's display.

"I did," Donna said tartly and then frowned at everyone in the room before she said, "Josh, I have a list. We should go unpack our things, get some supplies and come back, since we can't exactly take Sean back to the hotel."

"I'm really happy you're going to cook for me," Cally said, a little shyly, like he wasn't sure of the reaction he'd get. "No one has ever done that, not really. In the hospital doesn't count. I'm not sure Andy making bacon really counts either."

"Well, son, I hope you like it, and maybe it will bring back some memories."

Josh hustled to get their coats, and they left before anyone noticed Cally had gone silent and thoughtful.

"Do they think that, Tony? That I'm going to get my memories back? I can't tell if they think that for real, or if it's just like when you said the puck was going in during that game we watched, but you knew it wasn't."

"I'm sure they want to believe it. Cally, I want to believe it can happen. I want to make a deal with someone, god or the universe, to get even a little back for you."

"You can't do that, though."

"No."

"And if I did get all of those memories back, I'd be gone."

"What do you mean," Tony asked, but he knew. He did. He'd felt the clench in his gut when Donna had said what she had. He liked this Cally. He enjoyed his sunny outlook and the depth of his compassion for the people he loved. Tony liked who he became with this Cally. How easy it was to love him.

"If I turned back into that other guy, I'd be gone, Tony. This me is different. I get that."

"Not totally."

"Come on, let's go in my room," Cally demanded. He held out his hand, and Tony let himself be led to the smaller room, and they snuggled on the sofa in silence, while Tony contemplated the possibility of life without this Cally.

"The old you is in there," Tony said. "I keep seeing it, and your parents will too, given time."

"Not enough hours in the day."

Tony nodded at that and felt Cally's very large arm behind his head. The same body that he knew better than his own.

"Tell me a secret," Cally demanded, laughter in his voice.

"What?"

"Tell me something about you that I never knew before. A secret. For us, you and me."

"Oh, wow," Tony took advantage of needing time to think to rest his head on Cally's shoulder. "I'd been around a long time before I met you, there's lots of stuff." Knowing Cally, he wanted it to be fun, not some terrible truth or bitter life lesson. Sometimes things were all of the above, though. "When I was about eleven, I was at hockey practice and I fell on my ass right in front of this whole class of figure skaters coming out on the ice. We were late skating off. Total embarrassment. Total. And it was all because of this boy, blond and pretty and about fifteen or so, maybe not even that old. He was holding hands with a girl while they skated by, and I remember feeling so much that I didn't really understand."

"Wow! Blond, huh. I'm sorry I'm only sort of red." Cally waved his hand at his head.

"Pink, Cally. Let's just be honest, it's more or less pink."

"Shut up."

"Hmmm."

"My dad means be less gay, right, when he said 'tone it down'."

"Yeah."

"I don't want to. Do you want me to?"

Tony wanted to go to sleep and not answer any questions. He wanted to just not have to be up to his eyebrows in the whole mess. He wanted Cally's parents to fuck off back to Vancouver and leave them alone. He wanted his man back, and he wanted to keep the one he had. He couldn't have any of it, and he had to answer. "I don't want you hurt. I think that's where me and your parents agree, but you get to decide this, babe. If you want your life back, if you want to play the game, maybe you have to keep who you are hidden."

"I feel like I can't decide. It's like I don't know how to choose." Cally rubbed his hand on Tony's arm and said, "I don't think you can nap now."

"No," he sat up. "They'll be back soon. Cally, can I ― I left my work computer at the office, and I half promised Joey I'd swing by and we'd talk a little. Can I do that? Take a couple of hours, and then you can be with your parents. They might relax if I'm not here."

"Talk to me instead of past me like the doctors do?" Cally said wryly. "Sure, Tony, go. I'll text you if I need you."

"Okay, babe, I won't be long."


	5. Chapter 5

Tony drove to the office, relieved to escape for a while, guilty, but he'd learned a long time since to not give in to that guilt. He had a job, and the kids had never needed him every minute, and Cally in the state he was in didn't either. Tony needed a breather.

He didn't even know where the Cubs were, if they were home, playing that day, or what the fuck was going on. He stood in the parking lot and figured out that it was Monday. So the team was practising ― or had. He was way too late for that. Joe's car was in the lot, though.

He moved through the building waving and walking quickly past people who likely had no idea why he'd disappeared on Saturday when it had been a game day. He needed to have some kind of memo circulated. He picked up his computer and headed right for Joe's office.

"Tony, fuck! How the fuck are you?" Joe said when he came in. "Close the door. Are we getting out the scotch?"

"Driving, Joey. Next time. Cally's parents are here, well, they went out for a bit, but they're due back, so I left Cally to relax on his own."

"You too," Joe said. "Tony seriously. I did this with Miranda. You have to get away from it sometimes."

"I don't think this is like that, Joey." Miranda had had cancer when Joe had first retired, and now she was a health-obsessed, healthy, fifty-something woman who took no shit from anyone.

"It will wear you out."

"Yeah, yeah. I ― well. I wanted to give them all a chance to talk alone, and fuck, but I'm sick of them already."

"In-laws. Same no matter what," Joe said. "They must be freaked out."

"I'm freaked out. You will be freaked out when you see him. And I sympathize but, they get on my nerves."

"Is this going to be a problem?" Joe said.

"For me?" Tony asked. "Maybe. Maybe. They won't stir up any publicity. But I'm talking to the brain trust in New Haven tomorrow with Cally. They will be putting out a press release, or I'll sic his agent on them to threaten to do it. They are fucking this up by waiting."

"They like to be sure, you know them," Joe said. The Cubs' relationship with their parent club wasn't always perfectly cordial, but they did have a relationship to maintain, and that was Joe's concern.

"Look, Joe, you know I'm not getting into a fight with them. I'll handle this quietly, but they can't drag this out. I won't let them."

"They need to put him in front of a camera, read a statement, get it over with."

"Fuck. Yeah. Not right away. We can spin it out as an illness for a week, but much longer and it'll be trouble. Look, about that, what did you tell people here?"

"Oh, just that you were out for a family thing," Joe said. "You tell me what the Lions are doing, and I'll handle this end right away. We got players that know each other very well here between the teams, Christ, we have the fucking Stiller brothers, so we need to sit on the gossip."

"Yeah. Jesus. I wish this meeting with them was now, today. Caution is a killer, I thought we knew that in this fucking game. Anyway, tell me what's up here, Joey."

They talked about work for a while; Tony gave him some of his longer thoughts on the new kid, and Joe handed him a jump drive loaded up with video to watch. It was relaxing to talk to someone he had a whole library of shorthand with. All he had to do was lean back and stare when Joe tried his usual claim that Jake Sill just needed some positive attention, and that he was not, in fact, a raging asshole.

"Yeah, okay, point taken," Joe grumbled.

They were in the middle of a rehash of their oldest argument about how exactly the damn forwards needed to not screen shots on the goalie, according to Joe, and they couldn't read the damn goalie's mind, according to Tony, when Tony's phone buzzed with a text.

"Please come home. The rule isn't working."

"Shit, Joey, gotta go." His gut was telling him he'd stayed gone too long, and he had known he was doing it. His gut was trying to eat him alive. "Look," he said at the door. "We have two days of important medical tests and then, I think, maybe Cally will need to be on his own some of the time. I'll call you, though. I'll call you tomorrow after we meet with the big shots, too."

He sped home. He should have listened to his gut instead of wherever he kept his cowardice that had told him he could sit and shoot the shit with Joe for an hour.

The house smelled of food, at least, so it hadn't all gone to shit.

He found Cally where he expected to find him — in his favourite room, slumped on the love seat, legs sprawled out with the coffee table askew like maybe he'd kicked it a few times. Tony sat on the opposite seat. He set his laptop on the table, fished the jump drive out of his pocket and set it on top. "I'll move this later, I don't want to take your space," he said.

"I'm really fucking angry," Cally said.

"Yeah, I can tell. You are still you, babe, and you aren't hard to read."

"Sean," Josh said, standing in the doorway, but wisely, Tony thought, not actually stepping into the room. The kitchen behind him was billowing out heat and smells of cooking and the sound of things banging around a little louder than they needed to be.

"He said," Cally said to Tony, long finger pointing at his father, "that I should go to Vancouver because I can't look after myself. He said that since I'm brain damaged, I had to leave here. He said you aren't my real family."

Tony sighed out his nose and wished it had all blown up enough for Josh and Donna to have left, but they were his parents; they wouldn't bail on Cally. And that was the point that mattered. "Cally, you guys had an argument, okay? You got really pissed, and you have a really loud voice when you're mad, by the way ― "

"I know," Cally said with a flicker of amusement and maybe pride.

"Why are they still here?"

Josh bristled at that, but Cally looked up, confused, and then thoughtful as he stared intently at Tony. "Why aren't you mad?" Cally said accusingly.

"Because, babe, it's not news to me that they feel that way about me."

"Why the hell didn't you tell me?" Cally demanded, loud voice in full force.

"Maybe I should have. Maybe ― I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here, Cally. But I didn't want to colour your opinion. I ― you. You responded to Pat and to Andy in a way you didn't to anyone else. I thought you might with them too. Maybe you have, I'm not sure. I didn't want to fuck that up." He didn't want to be accused of fucking that up either, but he believed that wasn't the whole of his reason.

"Maybe it isn't polite to say," Josh said, voice tight with anger, "but he's not your family. Your family comes first."

"I keep asking myself," Tony said to Cally, in as calm a tone as he could manage while his gut turned angrier and ate him alive a little quicker, "what would I do if this was Andy?"

Cally's head snapped up. "You would want him here. All the ― I would want him here to look after, but ― his mom …"

"Yeah. Knew you'd get it." Tony leaned back and closed his eyes and tried to make the tension leave his body. It would be fucking awesome if his shoulder locked up on him again.

"What do I do?" Cally said.

"Have dinner," Tony answered him without opening his eyes. "Go to bed, get up, have the MRI, have the meeting with the team, go for tests the next day. Think about what it all means if you can find the time."

"You would be okay if I left?" Cally asked, softly, and in the best attempt at a neutral tone he'd ever heard from a man scared to death his whole world was collapsing.

"I would not," Tony said, sitting up, eyes wide open. "I would not be okay. Even though I'd know you were okay, and you would be, they love you, I know that." Fucking Josh was still standing there, and Tony wanted to shove him in the kitchen and slam the door in his face.

"Okay." Cally nodded firmly. "I think I understand better. You should have told me, Tony, that this would happen."

"Yeah, I think so. I think I fucked this up."

"I want to yell at you, but I'm too tired."

Josh wasn't going to let them just drop it. "Son, we just want what's best for you. And that is having you come home where we can look after you. The doctors are the best, Sean ―"

"Okay," Tony said, "that's enough. You aren't having the MRI tomorrow, Josh, he is. So you've said your piece, and he's a grown man, he can think about it on his own time. He knows how I feel, so I'm shutting the fuck up too."

"Dinner is ready, if anyone wants to eat," Donna said, sternly.

Tony got up and reported to the dining room, and Cally trailed along behind him.

"I want to meet Eileen," Cally said. They were a few minutes into a silent meal, and Cally hadn't even said anything about the food, he was so deep in his own head. "I want to see places you guys talked about. Your house and stuff."

"You can see all your old friends," Donna said, enthusiastically, like she was the Vancouver tourist board.

"I won't know who they are," Cally said, gently. "I ― Tony, will there be a lot of people tomorrow who know me. I ― damn ― I'm worried now."

Which was Tony's fault. His and Cally's parents. Tony shoved that thought away and gave Cally the scouting report on the GM, his assistant, and anyone else who might be around. He tried to be neutral about it all, and that just made Cally frustrated. "Tell me how you feel about them. What are these guys like?"

"They're hockey guys," Tony said. "So that means they can be a bit conservative and set in their ways."

"That means something, you're saying that like it means something. Tony, I don't understand when people do that. You know that," Cally snapped at him.

"Sorry, all right? I'm new at this! Cut me some slack here."

"Okay!" Cally said, slamming his fork down. "Just. The rule, keep to the rule."

"They're uncomfortable about the gay thing. They are uncomfortable that it's me you're with."

"Okay, why? I don't get that?"

Tony sat back and tried to think what to say, and sighed, defeated. "I'm not sure I can explain everything. I'm not sure I understand the world that well."

"I think I know this stuff. I think it is a thing I know. I'm just not sure. I'm doubting everything right now."

"I want to come to this meeting," Josh said, and Tony said, "Fine by me," before anyone could take a breath. "But it's not my call."

"What do I want them to do?" Cally said. "Is this a negotiation? Am I trying to win something."

Josh launched into an explanation of negotiating tactics that Cally listened to, and Tony ignored. The meal was killing the acid in his stomach, although he'd likely feel it again later, right about when Josh and Donna left and Cally started yelling at him.

"You think they should issue a press release," Cally said to Tony.

"They have to. I want them to do it now so we aren't looking over our shoulders at the hospital."

"Right, more tests. It's a full-time job, having a broken brain." Cally smiled a little, weak compared to his usual sunny look.

"It won't always be. And you'll want out of the house."

"People won't be able to tell I'm hurt, and that's a lot of money they're paying me. I'm still not convinced they don't care about that."

"Oh, they care, Cally. They just care more about how good a player you are. And, yes, people will think it's weird if you look fully healthy bopping around town. Look, me and Joey talked about this. He's been in this business for twenty years after he quit playing. We both think where this has to go is you doing a media availability."

"Like the guy after that game we watched?" Cally said over Donna's sharp intake of breath.

"Sort of. When a coach does that after a game it's not such a big deal, not as formal. I don't think we want this right now, by the way, but soon. When we can have a doctor sit there and say something that isn't a lot of waffling."

"And me too, though? I'd have to talk to all those people?"

"Yeah. And they all know you."

"Oh." Cally looked down at his plate and loaded up some mashed potatoes on his fork. "This gravy stuff is maybe better than bacon," he said, and turned the full wattage of his pleasure on his mom. "Thank you for making it."

"Jesus what the hell happens the first time someone gives him a beer?" Josh said.

"We hope there's no cameras around," Tony said, hoping Josh might think about how many people in your average Vancouver bar might know Cally when Cally didn't know them.

"Someone will have to teach me how to talk to reporters," Cally said. "I don't think the occupational therapy at the hospital includes that. Oh! Mom and Dad, what if I email the caseworker and ask if you can talk to her? She is way better at explaining stuff about dealing with memory loss than I am."

"I would like that," Donna said. "I would like that a lot. I feel so lost, and Sean, honey, you handle this better than the rest of us, and you make me proud every second to see you do it."

"Really?" Cally said, looking around. "Wow, that feels really good. Almost as good as gravy."

Cally was a miracle man because they all managed to laugh at his joke. Cally was pleased with their response, which was enough to help Tony relax a little, and they found less upsetting things to talk about until dinner was done.

He let Cally see his parents out in privacy, and he braced himself for Cally to come back still hot about Tony leaving him high and dry with them. Hiding in the kitchen worked for men too.

"Tony," Cally said, from the door to his room. His office, Tony should call it, and that planted the seed of an idea he set aside for later. "Why did you do that? Really? I was so angry about how they talked about you, and you just let them!"

"I can't control how they feel, babe. Come on, sit." Tony pointed at the room behind Cally, and he followed him in, intentionally took the seat across from him.

"I'm older than you, Cally."

"Everyone is!" Cally said. "Minus a few babies that have been born in the last few days."

"Yeah, okay. Fair enough, but before, Cally, I have a past and a lot of experience and they always seemed to me like they thought I was controlling you or something."

"With your work voice," Cally said.

Tony couldn't tell if he was joking or not, or making a sex joke if he was. He shrugged that thought off. "I was married for a long time. I know what all this family stuff is like. And I was afraid I'd find myself between you and them."

Cally was slumped down on the sofa again, and he looked dimmed out, duller than he had ever seemed since he was ill.

"Is this what that test at the hospital is really for? To keep them from taking me home with them?"

"Them, your manager, anyone. Me, I guess," Tony said.

"I trust you, Tony. Why don't they?"

"They barely know me, Cally, and they're afraid. I know how that feels because so am I, and I keep wanting to just hold you tight and keep the world away from you, but I can't do that. I can't be your dad. And you don't need one. I don't want to be either ― but people will think that."

Cally nodded. So that likely meant he understood. "I'm scared of this meeting more than I am the MRI."

"And I made it all worse. I've fucked this up." Tony shook his head and sighed. "The rule isn't enough sometimes."

"I wish I could read a blog by someone who's had a meeting with those kinds of guys like that lady wrote about MRIs. And the press stuff, who can teach me that?"

"Babe, that's part of my job to teach guys a lot dumber than you stuff like that. And Joey is that kind of guy … Cally? It's not late, if Joey is free, could he come over for a bit? Or do you feel brave, and we can go to his place, it's about a ten-minute drive."

"Um, okay? Why?"

"You can get some advice on dealing with guys like that from a guy who really knows. And he's one of my oldest friends, and I think he wants to see you with his own eyes that you're really fine. If you want to just say fuck it, this day was too much, we can watch a game or something."

"No, I'll try. My mom said she was proud of me, so maybe I'm good at this no-memory job. I want to meet someone who likes you anyway. Do I need to change?" Cally looked at his casual clothes and frowned. "People dress nicer when they visit."

"Change if you want," Tony said, amused at how Cally-like the impulse to wear the right clothes was. "I'll give him a call, make sure he's home."

They pulled up in front of the house, and Cally got out of the car and looked around. "This isn't as big as our house."

"Joey's older than me, so the kids have all moved out for good. And they didn't make as much money when he was playing."

Joe met them at the door and took their coats. Tony let Cally introduce himself the way he liked to. He gave his warning about how he said things that upset people sometimes.

"Come in, guys," Joe said, taking that all in, "Miranda is here, and you can meet her too, Cally."

"Cally, you look fabulous," Miranda said, and tried to do the usual cheek kisses thing, but Cally failed it utterly. "Cally, Tony will never teach you the really important manners you need, so I will."

The stood around in the living room while Miranda ran him through the full gamut of how to shake hands with a woman, how to kiss cheeks, everything. Cally discovered that some of it was things he knew, but he wasn't very smooth at it. They were all laughing at his failures by the time he'd measured up to Miranda's standards.

"Okay, darling, now that we've covered that, how about a drink? You used to like beer? Just say no thank you if you don't want one."

"Yes, please!" Cally said, and she winked at him. Tony wasn't sure he'd ever seen Miranda flirt so forcefully with Cally before, but there had always been a little something there.

She came back with drinks, and they sat down. Joe was oddly quiet, just watching.

"Miranda," Cally said, "you're very good at talking to me and telling me stuff. Almost as good as Tony. How come some people are and some aren't?"

"Well, honey, I had cancer. Breast cancer. It was horrible, and I was sick for years. My hair fell out, I looked terrible all the time, too thin. People would try to pretend everything was normal when they talked to me, and it used to piss me off. So I thought I'd just be straight with you, and not pretend. You going to try that beer?"

"I'm sort of afraid," Cally admitted. "I had bacon and wanted to eat ten pounds of it."

Everyone laughed again, and then watched as Cally sniffed the beer and tasted it and made a face. "I'm not sure this is anywhere near bacon," he said.

"Tony said you were worried about this meeting tomorrow," Joe said, when Miranda had bantered with Cally a little more, and proved that was something he was good at. Laughing and having fun seemed to come naturally to him.

"Yeah. I don't really know what guys like that are like. And I've been thinking that maybe I should do the talking. People sometimes talk past me to Tony."

"Doctors!" Miranda said.

"Yes!" Cally answered and they toasted with their drinks.

"Fuck 'em all," she said, and Cally frowned and said, "Miranda, some of them are women."

When they'd finished laughing over that one, and Tony had shared a look with Joe wondering if they were both drunk ― Miranda rarely drank anything that wasn't plain water, or did anything that wasn't at least half exercise ― Cally apologized to Joe for losing the thread of the conversation.

"It's fine, Cally. I like seeing people happy. I think I see why people are talking past you, though. You don't come off like you used to."

"I can be more serious," Cally said.

"That would be good. I'll run the play for you. You have Jack Steigler and Elliot Graves, two totally different guys who are almost identical." Joe warmed up to his tale, and he was a good storyteller, so Tony just let him go. "Steegs is a little older than me, and he's the GM, which is the top boss. He wasn't with the team when I played, but I think he was there for Tony's last couple of years as the assistant. He was a tough customer when he played back in the day, and now he thinks he still is. He doesn't always like the young crowd taking over the game, and he likes to get respect."

"Oh," Cally said, worried, "that sounds ― "

"Cut to the punchline, honey," Miranda said.

"Fine, fine," Joe said. "His granddaughter is gay."

"What?" Tony said. "She is?"

"Yeah, and not a lot of people know that, and he isn't going to tell you that ever, but he won't fuck you over. He will like you better the more serious you are."

"You mean 'tone it down'," Cally said a little mulishly. "I'm not sure I can."

"You can, honey," Miranda said, "it's the same as the difference in how you shake hands with someone you know and someone you don't. You just put on a nice suit, you sit up straight, you smile, very, very slightly and you don't take any bullshit. You keep that slight smile on your face while you politely refuse to take it, but you don't take it."

"Oh," Cally said, rubbing his nose. "I'm almost drunk, Miranda."

"You are nowhere near drunk, you are a 200-pound man."

"Maybe," he said, with a smile. "So I should stop interrupting Joe, though, that's not what you do at a meeting." Cally turned and tried the pose Miranda had given him, and it looked forced and fake at first, but he got the hang of making it look natural very fast. It was a thing he knew, it seemed.

"So that's Steegs," Joe continued, "Graves was also a tough guy, but he's got less brain, which would be good for you if you wanted to negotiate a contract, but you're negotiating time off — indefinite time off, without fucking up your chances to come back if that happens. That's tougher because he might want to cut his losses. Graves is who you have to convince not to cut you out of the team loop. He is the cautious guy saying to the rest of the team, 'Don't say anything publicly, see if he comes back first,' and so on. He always wants all his options open, and you are closing one of his options which is to pretend to interested parties that they might trade you for magic beans."

"Wow. How do I convince him?" Cally said.

"By showing him he has no choice. Look, kid, you aren't hiding in your house. Tell him that and then you gotta say it somehow like he hears the threat that if he isn't smart about this, you're going to be all over the news as a gay player the team is trying to screw. You want him to see that 'Cally, the stoic survivor of this horrible brain injury' is a PR angle that makes him look better."

"They love it when you've triumphed," Miranda said bitterly. "Don't let the fuckers see you weak."

"I think I need to tell my dad to keep his mouth shut too," Cally said and looked thoughtful. "Okay, how is this?" He sat up and assumed the bland face Tony had seen him use in public more times than he could count. "Gentlemen, I'm stuck in a tough place. I don't want publicity, but I'm finding out that getting treatment for this condition is a full-time job. I will be out where people see me. I don't want to be telling lies everywhere."

"Nope," Tony said. "First part is good. But it's not lies, It's, 'I don't want to be no-commenting the press when they find me because that just fuels speculation about all sorts of things.'"

"Okay, okay. I get it," Cally said.

They ran him through a few more lines, and Cally politely told Miranda no when she wanted to get him another beer. They all laughed when Cally lamented that it would take him forever to get dressed for the meeting. "I have about a hundred suits!" he said, and they laughed more, which he smiled at ruefully.

"It was really wonderful to meet you, Miranda," Cally said, hugging her close, just before they left.

"Cally, honey, I think I feel privileged to have met you too."

Tony waved goodbye to his old friend and drove Cally home, glad the day had ended on a high note.

"I have a text from Mom," Cally said when they were in bed but not quite ready to turn the light out. "She wants to say good night, and to know when we're heading out."

"Let's say eight, to be early for paperwork."

"Okay."

"You aren't angry anymore?"

"I think I'm mostly over it. I think I even understand why you did it, kind of. Miranda was fun, and Joe was really nice. But they didn't love Sean before did they?"

"No, babe, they didn't even know you very well."

"How come it's so easy for you?"

"Easy! Fuck off." He shoved at Cally's leg. He liked to sit cross-legged on the bed, and he took up too much room that way. He had a lot of leg.

"I mean," Cally said and trailed off while he thumbed in a message and then turned his phone off and set it aside. "You don't tell me all the time that you want the old me back like Mom and Dad do. They love Sean, not me."

Tony flopped down on the bed to consider that. "You like this way of looking at it, that you are a different person," he said.

"I feel like it. Everyone is surprised by me. They do the thing where they pause and sort of stare while they figure out why I'm weird, or wonder what I'll say next. I'm too gay. My dad thinks that. I'm too loud and I laugh too much. My mom thinks that. They look at me like I stole this Sean guy's body or something. And you look at me like you love me."

"I ―"

"And that you're worried," Cally interrupted. "Are you afraid, Tony?"

Cally slid down, so he was lying on the bed facing Tony.

Tony glanced over at him. Cally looked intent, interested, not worried. He looked more relaxed than he had all day. "Are you still drunk?"

"No. I just feel good that I met new people ― old people, I guess, Sean's friends, or whatever, and I handled it okay. I had fun. You had fun, that's what matters most."

"I am afraid all the time," Tony admitted. "Maybe I just hide it better. I think ― I don't know what to tell you, Cally. You woke up like this, you needed me, and every minute we're together, I feel ― I do, I do love you. But Cally, don't ever question that I always did. You aren't two different people."

Cally looked skeptical at that, but he didn't argue it, and Tony was glad because he wasn't sure he'd win it if they did. He rolled over so he was closer, what Cally obviously wanted, and he closed his eyes and touched him by feel. Tony knew the shape of Cally's face the, curve of his brows, where his hairline dipped over one eye just a little.

Tony rolled back and turned the light out and repeated it all in the dark. He ran his hand down Cally's arm, and up his back, teasing one finger in the hollow of his spine just above the swell of his ass, and Cally gasped and writhed a little. "I know you," Tony said. "Can I prove it some more?"

"Okay, yeah, I, Tony, please."

He moved his hand to Cally's ass and squeezed and listened for the hitch of breath. "I know how to make you feel good," he said.

"Please, I ― Tony, I want that."

He didn't doubt that was true, but he couldn't ask Cally how exactly he wanted to achieve that. "I want you to trust me," he whispered, and tugged Cally's shorts down slow enough that Cally could stop him.

"I want you to touch me," Cally said wryly and then laughed, provocation enough that Tony got him in a harder grip than he would have. He was rewarded with more noise and writhing than one handjob, however expert, should have been worth.

"Oh, god. Better than bacon, Tony, way better than anything."

Tony rested his head on Cally's sweaty shoulder and laughed. He had to. He couldn't cry.

"That was my first time, Tony. I know you don't think it works like this, but that was amazing and I want to remember it forever."

"I hope you do, babe."

"Okay, now tell me what to do," he said with enthusiasm. "I want to kiss you first, so I'm just going to."

Tony wasn't even sure he was up for much, but Cally really wanted to kiss him a lot less chastely or friendly than he ever had before. He liked to run his fingers through Tony's hair, and he did that while he taught himself how to kiss deeply and softly. His hand kept wandering to Tony's shoulder, his arm, but it never went farther.

Finally, Tony pulled him close and proved how hard he was, how ready.

"You want something," Cally said, softly, almost shy. First time, Tony reminded himself.

"I want you, babe. Always. Just touch me, and it will be good. I promise. We can always refine your technique some other night."

It was very like a first time. And very Cally — enthusiastic and fearless and gentle and kind all at the same time.

Tony may have cried a little when he came, but the lights were off, no would ever know.


	6. Chapter 6

Cally's parents showed up early before they were ready to go to New Haven for the day. It gave them time to critique what Cally had picked out to wear, which Tony had known was coming.

"We had this argument," Cally said blandly when his mother explained why he should change.

"Who did?" Donna asked.

"Me and Tony. We talked about it. He said what you guys said, and I said that I like this suit. It's me. It makes me look good ― you can't argue that this blue makes my hair look a very funny shade of orange."

"Pink," Tony muttered, and Cally turned a sunny smile on him. "Yeah, funny."

"It's not really appropriate for a serious meeting," Josh said.

"I know that. Guys, I'm not dumb. I want them to realize that I'm happy and strong and healthy. Also, I'm scared of this MRI, okay, and this colour cheers me up."

"That's why you bought it," Tony said, breaking his vow with himself to not say that, to not tell the story. "You were in a long goal drought, and you were angry all the time, and we had a fight."

"Yelling? Tony, was there yelling?" Cally asked avidly.

Tony was leaning in the doorway, waiting for Cally to decide on a coat and shoes or boots, and he could see Donna and Josh share a look that spoke volumes he couldn't read. "There was yelling. I said some offhand thing, like why didn't you go buy something to cheer yourself up with, and I likely meant a big bottle of vodka, but you stormed off all the way to Manhattan and came home with that. And a few grand's worth of other stuff. It was the new you, you claimed." And maybe Cally had wanted a new him long before the slump that had set him to doubting himself, and maybe this Cally had been inside his man the whole time.

They all fell silent, thinking their own thoughts about the new Cally.

"Okay, Mom," Cally said, "you help me. Tony's no use. I don't really understand winter. What do I wear? I don't think we're going to be outside much."

"Honey, it will be warm in the car, and you haven't been cold since you were a baby, so wear a light topcoat. But wet feet are hell. Pick some boots. If you're saying dammit, I am what I am, wear some boots."

"Is that what I'm saying?" he asked, while he dug out a severe black trench coat that made him look like the gayest FBI agent to ever arrest anyone. He pulled on a pair of boots that made him taller and the total effect was remarkable.

"I don't know," Tony said, "but you should always listen to your mother and not me about clothes."

They got in the car, on time, and they drove to New Haven, and Tony let Josh and Donna take turns answering Cally's questions. They warmed to the job, especially Donna, and Tony was beginning to wonder if she had enough friends back home, if she had anyone to talk to now that Eileen was done university and out of the house. Donna was an office administrator in a lawyer's office, nothing special, but if she was like the woman that ran his office, she had people to chat to, but no one to really talk with. She'd be surrounded by men, most of them younger.

It was relaxing to let someone else carry the load of helping Cally get through the world. He talked out his stress, a thing he'd always done, by telling his parents everything he knew about MRIs.

"I had one once," Josh said.

"You should have told me!" Cally exclaimed. "Was it scary?"

"Yeah, kinda. For Donna, I think. They thought I might have something serious, but it wasn't, and it was all a lot of worry over nothing. We never told you kids."

"I don't know when I should ask people if they know stuff. Isn't it rude?"

Donna gave him a long explanation about when that was and wasn't rude, and he interrupted several times to finish her thoughts.

"I think this is all things you know, Sean," she said dryly.

"Yeah, I guess. I wish I had a list of those." He got quiet as they neared the hospital, so Tony started pointing things out, the road that went to the arena, the direction of the college, the general area Pat lived in with his mother.

"You'll have to tell her won't you?" Cally said.

"Yeah," Tony sighed. "I should call her today, maybe when you're in getting the test. If the team sends out a press release, yeah, I should. Thanks for reminding me, Cally."

"They love her, the boys do. I can tell."

"What tells you?" Tony asked.

"I asked them to explain things. I remembered what you told me about it in the hospital, but some stuff didn't make sense, so I asked. They like her, too, the way I like them, you know what I mean?"

"Not completely," Tony said, keenly aware of the silence from the back of the car.

"It's not the same — loving and liking. You like someone because of who they are, you love them because of how you feel. I know how I feel about you and about them."

"And us?" Donna asked, incredibly bravely, Tony thought.

"I'm confused," Cally said. "I'm always confused. But you guys really made me angry, and I think now that I've cooled off and thought about it, I wouldn't be so mad if I didn't care what you think. We need more time," he said decisively. "But I can tell how much you love me, that's really obvious."

They pulled into the hospital and Tony dropped everyone off, parked, and caught up with them at the first line they had to wait in. Cally was getting looks.

Cally was a peacock blue man well over six feet tall, broad in the shoulders, red haired, and sporting a sunny smile. They got looks because of that. But some people had to recognize him. Tony patted Cally on the arm and went looking for some authority to convince to do him a favour. He talked his way up the chain fast enough, and he came back with an administrator dressed like a doctor and they skipped the lines and went right to the private neurology waiting room.

It was as boring as every other hospital visit, made complicated by how much time he had to sit with Josh and Donna. They hadn't all needed to come, but it was symbolic support, he supposed. He wished he had his laptop to look at game video to fill the time. When Josh started gently probing, trying to convince Donna not to come to their meeting with the team, Tony excused himself and found a corner of a sprawling and noisy food court to talk to his ex-wife.

He started with a text and waited, sipping terrible coffee, for her to get back to him. She had a lot of money, so she didn't work in the traditional sense. It was his money, in a way, but she had built a world for his boys to live in with it, and they were good men, men he was proud of. He should tell them that more often. Cally had glowed like the sun when his mom had said she was proud of him.

Jane called him back. 

She was short, small, delicate, dark-haired and sharp-featured and more Irish than Cally. He'd never really drawn anyone's attention to that. That he'd gone from one extreme to the other without switching ethnicity. His boys had grown up with their famous father's name, and his identity, and likely rarely thought about the other half of their genes. She was American like him, and what went into the mix didn't seem to matter so much until you hit the old New York money types that didn't like dirty Catholics who'd earned their own wealth.  They were new money. All of them, including Cally, rolling in the dough because of hockey, not business or finance or cut-throat evil from three generations back. But that didn't mean they were all alike.

"Tony," Jane said. "What's up. Something is up because Pat is acting weird."

"Yeah, something is up. Look it's hard to explain, but I'll try."

He gave her the medical side of things, and once the shock wore off and she was trying to sort it out, she got it wrong in ways maybe he should have seen coming. She'd never seen it as her job to be the family expert on gay men and their habits. She still went to church, unlike him, for one thing.

"What do you mean he responded to the boys?" she said sharply.

"This is hard to explain. He does not know them. He does not remember them, but he trusts them, I guess. He respects them, thinks they're important. He told me when he woke up and Pat was there he knew how to play it cool and not upset him, that a kid needed that from an adult."

"So he knows the difference? Andy's not a kid anymore."

"Of course he knows the difference. He's not mentally ― I don't know ― damaged. He just has no memory of things that have happened. Like he can read, he just doesn't remember being taught, and it's obvious his parents taught him right from wrong. If anything, he's too willing to care about other people and cut them slack."

"I'm their mother, Tony, I'm allowed to be worried about their safety."

"He's not a predator, Jane, come on. He is really clear on what his relationship is to the boys. You have no cause for concern."

"How does he know this? You said he doesn't remember them."

"Jane," Tony said and had to rein in his temper. "Right from wrong? And okay, you made me tell you this, so remember that. He is sexually attracted to men, Jane. To me. Not to boys, not even to guys Andy's age. He has said so, and if you need me to, I can give you more details of his fascination with competitive swimming and how he gets annoyed when they're too young."

"No, I'd rather you didn't," she said coldly.

"Well, you asked, Jane. You thought this worry up out of nothing." He had wanted to tell her that the real worry he had was that Cally was taking up too much of Andy's time, talking via text, but he decided that Andy was a man who could learn on his own how to set limits on his friends.

"I think maybe Pat should stay here this weekend," she said.

Tony sighed, loudly and rudely. "Cally's parents are here, Jane. There's more adult supervision around here than any sixteen year old could need. And ask Pat what he thinks about that, see what he says. He told me he's got a ride with a guy on his team Friday after school, and he's going back Saturday morning for a practice in the afternoon, and I'll drive him for that."

"You'll be there?" she asked.

"Or Cally's parents, likely. But Jane, this is a one time deal you're getting where you get to speculate that a man I think very highly of is a sexual predator because he has memory loss. One time. You try this bullshit again, and things will go ways you won't like. I get that this is confusing, but for fuck's sake Jane, grow up a little and see people for what they are, not what your uptight priest says they are."

He had thoughts about what her priest was. He had thoughts about what her priest likely got up to when he could get away from prying eyes. His eyes followed men around, not women, not boys, men, and he was pretty enough he'd get offers just by standing around in a collar. Tony still had some fucking brains, though, he kept his mouth shut about that, and tried to end the call at least on nominally friendly terms.

He went back to the waiting room and worked on stilling his beating heart and remembering that Jane was all talk when it came to her worries. He wanted Cally. He felt it so powerfully sitting there with Cally's parents who likely thought as little of him as Jane did of their son. He wanted Cally, and when he closed his eyes, it was a bright blue suit and a sunny smile he saw.

"Sean!" Donna said.

Tony startled awake and stood up immediately.

Cally looked as sleepy as he was. "Did you fall asleep, Tony?" he said delightedly. "I got in trouble for that. Twice."

"So it wasn't so bad then?" Tony asked him, smiling wide, showing how happy he was to see him. He'd let the man hug him if they were alone, and he wanted to be alone, wanted to feel Cally's arms around him.

"Boring. The doctor talked to me for like a minute. He said they think it's not going to show any surprises when they analyze the results, but he says he'll send a report to Ingles, and he'll talk to me tomorrow."

"What does that mean, no surprises?" Donna said.

"One of the nurses said that this thing today is just more detail than the other test. She said they use it to operate and stuff, but for me, that's not what they want. They want to know how much damage there is."

"Tomorrow," Josh said, nodding. "Did you set up that meeting for us?"

"Yeah, the caseworker said it was good thinking on my part," Cally said proudly. "I'm starving, can we eat before we go?"

Tony checked the time and said, "The team is expecting us sometime around one, so we have time, but not for a restaurant. You can get a sandwich or something here, but Cally, honestly, it might be a good idea to not hang around. I wonder if you're okay with going to the car and maybe Josh and Donna can get you something and meet us out front?"

"You don't want people to see me," Cally said with a nod.

"Yeah, come on, I found an unobtrusive exit."

They ducked out a staff door that was closer to the parking lot, and Tony took Cally's hand when they were alone in a sea of cars. "I miss being alone with you," he said. Not quite what he meant.

"I love you too," Cally said, amused.

"Fine, be the bigger man, Cally."

Lunch was a sandwich in the parking lot of the Lions offices. The 'front office' was a sprawling two-story addition on the back of their practice facility in a suburb away from the downtown arena. "I've done things in this parking lot," Tony said, "but never wolfed down hospital food in a car."

"Things?" Cally said, amused some more. He was in a good mood, not nervous or upset like Tony had feared.

"Mostly legal. I came here to play when I was nineteen, so this was my whole life for a while."

"Do you miss it?" Cally asked.

"Not anymore," Tony told him and looked over to see Cally watching him, like he was trying to learn when Tony was bullshitting, or maybe Cally already could tell. "It was tough at first, and I'd gone through the divorce and a few other things, and then," he raised a brow and tilted his head slightly at the quiet back seat.

Cally shrugged.

What the hell, then; they could learn the past again from him. He had no idea what Cally had ever told them. "I was working for the team for a couple of years, and it was okay. I was getting ready to make a move, though. PR was just like being captain only without any of the playing time or the millions."

"What did you do?" Cally asked.

"Interviews, commercials for TV. Filmed stuff for the website. They would drag me out when they wanted people to remember the old days. They were going through a bad time, losing a lot and waiting for young guys to get good. And then they made this big trade and called me up and told me to come down to the barn and meet the new guy, so I did."

"Wait. Me?"

"Yeah, you. It was some meeting. I was bored with the job and already had an offer from Joe I was mulling over, and you sauntered in and looked even more bored, shook a few hands, mostly ignored me, and then bam!"

"Really?"

"You zeroed in and started paying attention, and you looked like a bloodhound on a scent. You kept doggedly on when I told you to get lost too. I thought you were too young, too famous, and too likely to take one look at teenage boys and run. I was wrong."

"I hit on you?"

"More than once, babe. You are tenacious with something you want."

"But why would I not like the boys?"

"Young guys are often not into kids."

"Now I'm confused," Cally said, "They're really important. I feel that really strongly. Or know it. I can't imagine not thinking that."

"Yeah. I know that's how it is, Cally. That you're that kind of man. I was just dumb back then about a lot of things." Tony glanced at his watch. "We should go in. Donna do you want to wait in the car or inside?"

"I think I'll stay here," she said.

Tony left the keys in the car and the three of them headed for the side door that Tony's ID badge still opened. He knew most of the staff still, and it was easy to just step in front of Cally and Josh and shake hands and make quick small talk and then ask after Steegs like they were old buddies. No one called him on the seeming need for directions to Steegs office, and it cut conversations short. They didn't see any players, which was a bonus. The team was in town, had a game the next day, but they were in the wrong side of the building for players to wander by.

Steigler and Graves were both in the big man's office and so was Koss. "Doctor," Tony said, nodding after he'd shaken hands with the two men who had given him his first job post hockey. He didn't want to fight with them, but for Cally, he'd do anything. He stepped aside and let Cally handle it how he wanted to. He'd decided in the hospital that Cally was right, he needed Steegs and Graves to see him as the man he was, a fully in control of his life man in a bright blue suit.

Tony hid a smile and watched Cally introduce himself as if they were strangers, which to him they were, and he asked if they knew Josh and made introductions. The obvious proof of his new reality sobered everyone up and they sat and waited to see what Steegs would say.

"Cally, I ― I don't know what to say. You look great! But Koss told us how it is, and I'm not sure I believed him."

Cally nodded, seriously. "I understand that. I do. My parents are here," he lifted a hand in Josh's direction, "and I'm starting to understand, I should say, how hard it is. Mr Steigler, the thing is that for me, this is normal. I feel fine, great, even. But I know it will take everyone time to get used to me."

"But this isn't ― they can fix this?" Graves said, almost an accusation, and not directed at Koss, but maybe it was? Tony watched the doctor, who frowned minutely.

"No," Cally said. "No, they can't. They think some memory might come back naturally, but the neurologist today said that is a process that can take years or not happen at all. It won't be complete ever. I think ― he wants to tell me the results of the MRI through my other doctor, but I think it's clear this is a thing I have to learn to live with, not wait out."

"But that's not sure," Steigler said.

"Doctors never say anything is for sure," Cally said and got a mutter of agreement to that.

"So where the hell does that leave us? Short term, at least?" Steigler said, looking at Graves.

Graves said, "We need some kind of press release. Something vague, saying he's out sick. What the hell should we say? Week to week?"

"No," Cally said, smiling politely. "No, you can't do that. I have hospital appointments, therapy, I need to retake my driving test ― people will see me, and it will be a few days before this story is out. And if I say, 'no comment' to a reporter, they will start speculating and digging."

"You have to avoid the press," Graves said.

"Bridgeport is not that big a town," Josh said quietly.

"He could go to Vancouver," Graves said. "Out of sight, out of mind."

"Mr Graves," Cally said, smiling politely. "You don't get to tell me where to live. My doctors are in Bridgeport. So far, I like the program there, but I might be seeing specialists in New Haven too. And I'm sorry, sir, I'd love to avoid the reporters , but I don't know who they are. One could walk up to me and talk to me, and I'd never know."

"He's got you there, Gravey," Steigler said. "Look, we can't hide from this. We'll have to say he'll be out indefinitely. It would be irresponsible not to at this point. That will stir up the press interest, though."

"Yes," Cally said, nodding. "Yes, I can see that, but I think that is unavoidable. I can't give an interview right now that will calm that down either. I don't know enough about talking to the media, and I don't think we have a doctor who can give firm answers yet."

"When will we have that?" Steigler asked, zeroing in on Cally. Tony was pleased with how well he was doing and happy he'd made Steigler see him as the man to speak to.

"I'll be able to tell you that in a few days," Cally said. "I have various tests over the next couple, and then we'll know. But I don't want to feel like I'm a prisoner in my own house, and neither does my family, so we want you to make this press release happen today."

"Jesus," Graves said, "we haven't even told the team."

"Oh," Cally said, face falling. "They'll be very upset. They call and text me, and I've been ducking it, and I don't think that's a good thing. I'm not that kind of guy."

"You want a meet with them?" Steigler asked.

"I ― " Cally sat and looked stunned. "I should, shouldn't I? Mr Steigler, they were really important to me, weren't they? The team, all of it, all of you?"

"Jesus. Yeah, Cally, you were always a big team guy. Christ. How the fuck can we do this?"

"You have to just do it," Cally said. "Ask my dad. It's really hard. But you have to do it."

"Fuck," Graves said. "Fuck, fuck. This is the biggest fucking disaster. Cally, can you do that? Go in front of the team, the press, the world?"

"Mr Graves," Cally said, exquisitely gently, "it's not me it's hard on. It's everyone else I hurt."

"We're getting ahead of ourselves a little," Tony said, filing that away to talk about later. "We need that press release. I need to give Joe a heads up about it so he can circulate a memo, and we'd like to get to that before Stiller brother gossip does it for us."

"Shit," Graves said. "What do your people know?"

"That I'm off for a family emergency, and they are all smart enough to figure out who that is. I have to go back to work soon. I should be looking at game film right now."

"We need to move on this," Steigler said, like it had just occurred to him. "Get the PR department on it right now, and we'll approve it before you guys leave."

Graves moved to do that, and Steigler shifted the conversation to the question of Cally's longer term future. Josh stepped in and handled that, and Tony let him. Josh lived in a land of hope where he thought Cally was going to be his old self.

"I don't even know if I can skate," Cally objected when they'd got a little too optimistic on timelines.

"How can you not know?" Steigler asked, mystified.

"There's lots I don't have a clue about," Cally said blandly. "Sometimes I get a surprise, though."

"Do you want to try?" Tony asked, equally blandly. "Once they tell you the virus is definitely gone and you aren't sick at all."

"They think that already," Cally said, "but sure, where can we go?"

"I know a guy with keys to a place," Tony said.

"Oh, duh," Cally said and grinned at him. Steigler, seeing Cally relaxed and not in meeting mode, raised a brow and sat back. Tony met his eyes and waited, but he had nothing to say, not in front of Cally and Josh, at least.

"Yeah," Cally said. "I want to, and I should, I have a responsibility to tell Mr Steigler if I can play someday again or not. I honestly don't know," he said, turning his sincere face to Steigler again. "It's too soon to tell."

"I'm wondering if a one-on-one interview isn't a better idea than a full on availability," Steigler said.

Tony said nothing, but Josh nodded like that suited him.

"I don't understand," Cally said.

"We'd sit you down with our guy, Jackson or maybe Kelly would be more sympathetic. You tell her about your issues, and we run that in a game intermission."

"I can do that, but Tony thinks the other idea is better."

"Tony?"

"I have selfish reasons, Steegs. I don't want the reporters who resent us for using our own people to do TV hits to start digging in Cally's life looking for a story. I don't want them digging in my life. I want them ― Steegs, he is a man you want to like when he relaxes. All the hospital people are charmed. People who know him seem to be shocked at first and then they feel protective and want to help him. I'm willing to use that."

"Yeah, okay. I hear you. Jesus, what a mess. You really are okay, though, aren't you?" he said to Cally.

"Sure. I feel good. I keep learning new things. I have a list of food that is great. And I make my mom cry about six times a day."

Tony definitely filed that one away to talk about later, but it got Steigler thinking.

Graves came back with a draft release, and Cally made them change a couple of words. The team were ready to send it out by the time they left the building.

"I'm starving," Cally announced.

"Of course you are," Tony muttered, while he stood in the parking lot and sent a text to Joe.

"Feed me," Cally said, bumping Tony's shoulder.

"Get off, you giant irritant," he said, half testy for real.

"I am not a giant. You're just short."

Tony looked up at Cally. He was still close enough to feel the heat from his body, and Tony couldn't hold the glare when he had to tip his head back that far. "I am an ordinary size man. You are the weirdo. What do you want to eat?" He reached out and ran his hand up Cally's arm, and realized they'd spent an entire day rarely touching. It was almost five, not really dinner time, but close enough considering they had had no lunch to speak of.

"Meat," Cally said.

Josh and Donna were talking by the car in quiet tones, but it was too cold to stand around out in the slushy snow for long. "Cally wants to eat," he called over.

"I can cook when we get him home," Donna said. "We can't really go out."

Tony herded everyone into the car, turned the heat on full, and then put through a call. "We _can_ go out," he directed to the back seat. "Barry!" he said to the phone. "It's Tony, how the hell are you?"

He glanced at Cally who was watching him avidly as he schmoozed with an old ― not really a friend. Barry was the kind of guy who cultivated famous people and could be counted on to do you a favour now and again. In return, you steered other famous people to his restaurants and clubs. It was how the business worked in a town as small as New Haven. 

He got a private dining room and a guarantee of no fuss or publicity. Cally got a restaurant steak and a baked potato with blue cheese and sour cream dressing that he wanted to eat by the bowl full. He also had a glass of red wine, which he'd hesitated to try, but eventually started to drink maybe because it was there. "This is all amazing," he kept saying.

"I need to bake you a pie," Donna said.

Cally looked up and smiled, the sun out full on a hot July day. "I want to try pie," he enthused. "What kind?"

"Oh, maybe just apple to start? Something simple."

"Can you show me? I didn't get to see you make that gravy or the roast. Can I watch you make pie?"

"Sure, honey," Donna said. "Do we have time tomorrow?"

"We usually sort out our day in the morning," Cally said. "We decide what's important because we never have enough time for everything."

"Okay, honey."

"So, we both have hospital stuff. You guys get the caseworker, I get tests. And then we can do it. I'm going to say it's most important after the hospital, so it gets done."

"When will they clear you to try skating?" Josh asked.

"I don't know. I haven't asked. I don't want to fall on my ass, though."

"Have they said you shouldn't do anything, or ― where are you at with training?"

"I have no idea what that is, not really," Cally said.

"He was only really badly sick for a day," Tony explained. "Before that, he just seemed tired, and he still does a little, but it's hard to tell if that's stress or not. Talk to the caseworker. I don't think she really understands what an athlete is or does, but she might get him cleared."

"Cleared for what?" Cally asked.

"Working out, Sean," Josh said. "You shouldn't let that lapse."

"Oh, like weights and stuff? I think I know things about that."

"Cally, if you are making pie tomorrow, can I go into work?" Tony asked.

"Sure," Cally said, confused. "Oh! You think we'll all argue and stuff, and then I'll get mad again. No, it's cool. We'll make pie. What are you going to do?"

"First I really need to watch that game film, and then I want to watch Jonas in person for more than three minutes. And then I likely have a million emails."

"Oh." Cally's face fell. "I know. I don't know what to do. I get so much and," he pulled his phone out of his breast pocket and turned it on, "Yeah. I guess the press release is out. But I don't know who anyone is, and I'm afraid I'll miss something from you or Mom or the boys in all this."

"Tony rubbed his face. We could ― Josh? Can you drive us home? Or Donna? Maybe I should help Cally send a mass text to his team, and see if there's anything else in there."

"I can drive," Donna said. "Maybe we should go, do we need to wait for a cheque?"

"No," Tony said, "It'll get shunted to my manager eventually. Don't be surprised if it becomes common knowledge you were all here once the news is out, though. Barry likes getting paid that way too."

Tony sat in the back with Cally, and he found a phone list for the team on his phone that was almost up to date. He added a few guys on the Cubs who played up with the Lions enough that Cally knew them, and they figured out what he wanted to say. "We should hit your agent with some instructions on responding to the press. Manager too. And Eileen, for that matter."

"I'm filling her in now," Josh said. "You don't think she'll be contacted, do you?"

"Depends on if the rumours start up or not," Tony said absently as he sent off messages to his kids.

"Okay, this is for my agent and manager, does this look good?" Cally asked.

Tony read it over and patted him on the leg. "You're a natural."

"Okay, now I just have all the other stuff. Can I look people up to figure out who they are? I guess if they're players that would help, but …"

"Just call out the names, honey," Donna said. "Between us, we'll know. It'll be like those games you kids played on car trips."

Cally opened his mouth, like he might remind her he had no idea what she meant, but he shut it and cued up his newest phone messages. After the first five were former teammates, he composed a set message and started sending it to all of them as soon as someone said what team they were on. "Danika Matheson," he said and got silence.

"I'll google," Josh said. "Looks like some kind of journalist."

"Delete it," Tony said.

They had five mystery messages by the time they were home, not counting all the new ones that had piled up. "I will never remember who all these people are," Cally said. "Wow, I finally overfilled my new memories. I'm forgetting things just like a normal person."

"What time in the morning?" Donna said when she'd parked Tony's car in the garage.

"Um," Cally looked up his schedule. "The caseworker will meet you guys at 10, but I have to be there at 9."

"We'll come pick you up just after eight, then, sweetie."

"Are you coming to the hospital, Tony?" Cally asked.

"Sure, if you want," he said getting out and stretching. "What day is it, anyway?"

"It's only Tuesday," Donna said. "It feels like it's been a month."

"Yeah," Tony said. "But a good month a lot of the time."

"Oh." She looked at Cally who was standing still like he wasn't sure exactly what turn the conversation had taken. "I don't know."

"Pie will be fun, tomorrow, Mom, you'll see," he said.

She matched his encouraging smile with one of her own. "We'll stop on the way back from the hospital for supplies. Heavens, what a question, but can he go out? To the store?"

"Might as well get used to it," Tony answered. "He's not a rock star, so it's not that big a deal. But, Cally, you say goodnight and then when you come inside, we'll talk about autographs."

Tony went in the house and needed to stop himself from just going to bed to hide from all the things he had to explain to Cally.


	7. Chapter 7

Tony had left Cally with his parents so they could talk to him alone before they drove their own car to their hotel. Tony also had work of his own to do, so he set up his computer, hooked it to the TV and cued up the game video Joey had given him. He got out the whisky but left it closed and sitting on the coffee table. He went to change clothes and found Cally deep in his clothes closet. He hadn't even heard him come in the house.

"I want something comfortable," Cally announced.

"Your workout gear is all at the facility in New Haven," Tony said. "I can't remember the guy's name there to talk to, though. Shit. I can bring you some Cubs stuff home to do you until you can find what you like."

"Okay. I have worn all the shorts. I have these pants, but I ― I'll show you." Cally pulled on the pants, thin yoga pants, and even with a pair of briefs on under them, he was a sight. They weren't tight so much as just clingy in all the right places.

"Cally, I don't know where to look first."

"Stop it," Cally said, grinning.

"No really, it's like ass, dick, ass, dick. I think I'm dizzy."

"Stop it." He was laughing. "I'll fix you." He dug around and yanked out a black t-shirt printed in silver, pink and orange that was advertising some product Tony had never heard of. It was obviously old and very tight.

"That is not fixing anything," Tony said.

A few days before, and all he would have had to do is tip Cally the right look, and they'd be in bed, not heading for the living room to watch game video. He did need to watch the video. He settled in on the sofa and started the first clip. He quickly frowned and reran it to see if Jonas had really done what it had seemed the first time. "Dumbass," Tony muttered. It didn't take long before he was deep into it, freezing the frame, cursing the quality of the video, wishing for better angles and sure he needed to be watching the fucking games in person to do his job right.

Cally was slumped beside him, not really watching the TV. Tony left him to process whatever he was processing.

"This guy is really shit at faceoffs," Cally said after a while.

Tony paused the video and stretched. He eyed the whisky and decided it wouldn't hurt him to have one glass. "You want some?" he asked Cally.

"I don't know," Cally said, "let me taste."

Tony handed the glass over and watched him recoil from the smell and then from a sip too small to tell you if you liked it or not.

"That is nothing like wine, Tony."

"No, it isn't. And you're right, this guy is really shit at a lot of things."

Cally shrugged. "Not all of them. He's fast. He knows how to change direction and speed to confuse the defence. He's got a very good shot."

"Yeah," Tony said, looking over at Cally. "You're good at this, babe. I think a lot of the game is a thing you know."

"I want to try to skate, that sounds fun."

"Ask tomorrow. We can go some evening when no one is around, or first thing in the morning. Cally," he sighed. He had another hour of video to watch, and he needed to talk to him about worrying about making people happy, which he did too much, and how they were going to have to go meet with his team very soon, maybe in a couple of days. "Babe, help, me with this video. Tell me what you see."

Tony started the clip and slumped back into a sprawl that he hoped at least looked relaxed. Cally snuggled in close with his arm around Tony's shoulders. "He doesn't know what to do there," Cally said. "So he picks a direction and skates there fast."

"Yeah, I thought so too."

Cally stopped watching as closely and started nuzzling at Tony's hair, and it was both annoying and not. His ass really did look amazing in those pants, so Tony was already primed to get turned on.

"Oh!" Cally said. "Ouch. Is he okay there?"

Jonas had been hit hard on the boards and crumpled in a pile on the ice. "He's fine. Just not used to how the game is played here. Too focused on the puck there."

Cally, with his nose buried in Tony's hair and his breath ghosting along Tony's ear and one hand resting on Tony's thigh, was much more interesting than Jonas failing and succeeding at predictable things. Tony turned off the video. He turned his head a fraction, and Cally kissed him slowly, softly, the way he seemed to like. The way he did it now, the new Cally. He was tentative with his hands, too, the new Cally.

Tony leaned up into him and slid his palm up his back. He was such a handful in so many ways. And it had always been a bit of a thrill. Tony tried to show how he felt, tried to make encouraging sounds.

Cally threaded his fingers through Tony's hair and kissed him deeply. It was nice, but it wasn't what Tony really wanted. "Cally, babe," he said.

"Hmm?" Cally left his mouth alone, letting him talk, but he kept nuzzling at Tony's neck.

Tony was getting hard, he was into it, and Cally had had sex one time, by the way he saw life. Tony needed to have some patience. "You want to go to bed?" he said

"Okay, if you want. We didn't do things we said we would."

"Sometimes something important crops up."

Cally, maybe predictably, thought that was really funny.

"Just for that, you can walk in front of me to the bedroom," Tony told him, and stood up and gestured for him to go.

Cally did have a different walk, looser in the hips, and it was a very nice rear view.

They ended up in bed, exactly as they'd been on the sofa, kissing softly, most of their clothes still on. Tony felt like he was getting the teenage exploration of boys he'd never had. His teenage exploration of girls had been so full of worry over why he wasn't really into it, he'd never had time to care much about anything else.

He figured he could learn something — patience, if nothing else — if he just let Cally take the lead, see where he wanted to go. Cally led them gently and softly to the same place they'd been once before, and Tony would be a liar if he said it wasn't good, but his earthier desires went unsatisfied. He was tired, they both were, and they slept well.

Contentment was an underrated state, Tony told himself in the morning when he was feeling itchy for something more, but also happy with what he had.

"I need to write up that game video," he said to Cally over coffee.

"You do? Why?"

"It's a report on the guy, and it goes in his file along with the video. I'll do another one after the practice this afternoon. I'll talk to him and write that up. Just like they do for patients in the hospital. You have a file full of reports there now. I think Joe's guy, who developed the system we use, used to work in hospital admin."

"So a new hockey player is the same as a patient? Are you a hockey player doctor?" Cally was amused by his own joke, but Tony just shook his head and got his laptop. Cally watched him type up his report while thumbing through messages on his phone. "Do you want to go to work all day, Tony?"

"Can I, babe? Only if you think it's okay. I ― you guys are getting along okay?"

"When you're around, yeah. I think they'll be busy today at the hospital, so it'll be fine. And then I'm going to insist we have fun and not worry about the future so much and talk about it until we're all upset."

Tony looked up at Cally and frowned. "Do you? Worry?"

He was doomed not to know since Cally's parents showed up and the day got started for everyone.

He felt guilty for hitting the office at the usual time. He pushed it aside and worked. He had to answer a lot of questions about Cally, and he put people off with a couple of stock phrases until word got around and the questions dried up. The worried looks increased, and they couldn't keep up the vague act. He had to have some kind of story to tell everyone soon.

He went to practice where it was all business. There was no room for anyone to be concerned about him, and it felt great. He put his skates on and worked directly with Jonas after the main work was done. A couple of the guys who usually knocked pucks in the net after everyone else was done watched them with interest as he took Jonas on a tour of the ice and talked him through some things he was doing poorly. They talked a lot about keeping his head up along the boards. He sent Jonas off to see the coach and told him to report to Tony's office when he was free.

Tony sent a quick email to the coach and the assistants outlining his thoughts and apologizing for jumping the gun on them with Jonas. He got back a profane response from the coach inviting him to jump in any time and telling him there was a bottle of scotch in it for him if he could get the guy to listen.

Tony ruthlessly culled his email while he waited for Jonas to arrive. Hockey player doctor — Cally wasn't just cracking a bad joke, he was right. And Tony needed to give Jonas some coping strategies because he couldn't make the guy better overnight. 

Jonas sat in the chair opposite Tony and was very polite, soft spoken, very attractive, which Tony knew worked on straight guys more than they liked to admit, and a complete cypher. Tony couldn't get through to him. "Jonas," Tony said, getting frustrated, and that was an idea. He paused and looked at the guy: blond, soft-featured, a little too wide-eyed and baby-faced to be believed. "Jonas, do people get frustrated with you a lot?"

"Yes!" he said, startled.

"Do you know why?"

"Not really, Tony, no." He smiled faintly, politely. Miranda would approve of his act.

"You are a smiling, pleasant, slick, plastic nothing, and everything I say slides right the fuck off. I can't tell if you heard me, understood me, know enough fucking English to figure it out, or if you're mentally reciting the words to your favourite fucking rap song while you wait for me to shut up."

Jonas flushed bright red.

Tony sat up straight. "Do you? Recite something in your head to keep that damn smile on your face?"

"I don't think so, no."

"A guy taught me that, a trainer on the Lions. I was barely 19 and they kept sticking cameras in my face because I was hot shit, but I kept getting pissed off and snapping at everyone. He said, "Pick a song to sing in your head, and then learn to just spout the standard answers by word association."

"Did it work?"

"Yeah, it did. I cured the temper enough to end up captain in a couple of years."

Jonas nodded. And smiled politely.

"Tell me your life story, Jonas. Where did you go to school as a kid?"

Jonas told a tale of moving around from place to place that might be true, Tony could check the facts easily enough. Hidden in the story was another one of growing wealth — Russia to Poland to Switzerland to Sweden, back to Switzerland, all before he was sixteen.

"Private school?"

"Mostly, yes."

"Full of assholes?"

"Mostly, yes," Jonas said, genuine smile breaking his façade.

"I went to one of those. American, all about hockey, and Catholic, but full of assholes with money and stuff I didn't have and nice accents I've never tried to fake."

Jonas nodded and said, "It is different here. Full of Canadians who are nice, but know nothing but hockey. I like it, by the way, maybe it was not so easy to tell that's what I meant."

"You want to stay? Make it a career?"

"Oh, yes," Jonas said, almost passionately. "I don't want to go back to Europe. Not Russia. Not, I think, Switzerland either."

"Then you got a lot of shit to learn. Lesson one, is you have to accept in your heart that you are a very shitty hockey player who has been coasting on raw skill. If you don't change that, you will be back in Europe."

"I ― "

"You are a very shitty player," Tony said firmly. "I'm not a Canadian. I'm not nice, so listen up. Your faceoff work is garbage, you skate fine, but you skate to the wrong place, you shoot great, but you do it too slow. You pass like a fucking Swede, but you do it too late, too obvious. You are absolute garbage in the defensive zone."

"I ― "

"So step one is you take that to heart. You need to cope with that because we don't have magic pills here to make you better. You need to maximize what you do well. So simplify your game, and wipe that damn frown off your face. Do you want to be bored here while you learn to play hockey like you should have when you were twelve, or do you want to be good enough for Switzerland?"

"I ― "

"I know the coach has given you the drill on how to strip your game down. Do it. Prioritize. Focus on getting that shot off your stick fast every time. Shoot like crazy. Shoot right at the goalie, shoot from below the line, shoot it. Get the puck and shoot it. That's all you can do right now. That's in-game. That's for tomorrow. After that, in practice, you will work on faceoffs and you will work on passing up ice, quick, quick, quick."

"I..." he eyed up Tony warily and waited but eventually continued. "How does that improve my defensive game?"

"It doesn't. That's for later, but it makes you worth having in the meantime. Now tell me the three things you're to do. One?"

Jonas looked mulish and rubbed at his nose, but he said, "I will accept that I am a very shitty hockey player. Two, I will shoot, shoot, shoot, which is all I am good for right now, and then I will practice skill number two and become good passer."

"The hardest fucking thing is number one, Jonas. If you can do that, you will figure out the rest. It took me years." Jonas flickered a look of surprise that vanished behind the plastic façade. "I was a very talented kid, Jonas, very. And I'm not Canadian, so I didn't play with twenty other guys who were better my whole life. I had a lot to learn when I ended up on a team full of the fuckers at the age of 19."

"Swedes are just as bad," Jonas said with a curled lip. "I think I like America, though."

Tony thought Jonas might be a little weird. But he went on his way, seemingly a new man, aware of his flaws, so Tony counted it a win.

Joe showed up in his office to check in, and they caught up on things. "We need to tell people sooner than I thought," Tony said.

"Yeah, everyone wants the scoop. Gossip is going to get out."

Coach stuck his head in the door, saw Joe, and offered to leave them alone.

"No, Craig, come on in," Tony said. "I took out some of my tension on Jonas, so we'll see how he does in tomorrow's game. I should be able to watch it from up top."

"Okay, good," Craig said, "Good. There's a lot of skill there, Tony, a lot. More than most of our team."

"I know that. He's got a hard fucking head, though. But let's see how a game goes and then the practice after."

"You can commit to that?" Joe asked. "Tony take time if you need it."

"No, it's fine."

Craig looked a little squirrelly, like the conversation was going somewhere he didn't want it to go.

Tony nodded at the door and said, "Close that, Craig, I want to tell you something."

Craig did and stood nervously, glancing at Joe's game face and back to Tony.

"I'm using you like a practice goalie, okay, so, just stand there and listen. I, uh ― Cally was sick." Craig didn't have Jonas's bland face, he looked very uncomfortable, but Tony soldiered on. "He had a virus of some kind that looked like the flu. What no one knew was that it was making his brain swell up."

"Jesus," Craig said.

"This swelling caused some damage."

"Fuck. Tony, that's, — so, he's in the hospital?"

"No, actually, he's home, He seems fine, happy, healthy. He said they told him today the virus is gone from his system. He had an MRI and they don't see any swelling ―"

"You're taking too long," Joe said flatly. "Just shoot the puck."

Tony nodded. "Right. Okay. He has permanent memory loss. They think it's permanent. He doesn't know anyone, didn't know his own name. Remembers nothing of his past."

"Holy shit, Tony," Craig said. "I don't, I mean, I can't imagine this. What the ― they think it's permanent?"

"He makes new memories fine. All of his tests show his brain works fine. He just has no past."

"He can't play," Craig said. "At all ― ah shit, you have to go public with this."

"Yup. Which is why I'm practising on you. Because this whole team will have to be told. And I think it's going to be soon."

"He's at home?" Craig said.

"His parents are here, but he's fine. The hospital cancelled his driver's licence, so that's going to be our first project to see if he can just drive or what."

"Is he going back with them?" Craig asked. "They're from somewhere north aren't they?"

"Vancouver," Tony supplied. "And no, he's not going back with them."

"But, wouldn't that be best?"

"Craig, that was a favour you did me there, letting me practice on you, so I'm gonna do you one," Tony said.

"Tony," Joe said, cautiously.

Tony grinned at Joe and then at Craig. "I'll assume your wife is your business, and you do the same for me, Craig. It's just my bad luck that mine's famous, or I'd likely never have told you at all what's going on."

"Um, sure. Tony, fine. I don't think it's the same thing ―"

"I don't care, Craig, is the point you're missing, what you think is the same or not."

Joe said, "Craig, Tony's under a lot of stress right now, and speaking from experience, strangers never know what's best. Keep it to yourself. All of this. We aren't ready to tell the staff yet, but we likely will soon, so give your guys the benefit of your experience and tell them water cooler gossip about what's best is never a good idea."

Craig left, not even pissed off, Joe was just that good at delivering that kind of lecture in a pleasant and even tone.

"Tony, go home," Joe said.

"I'm going. I'll be in tomorrow late, but I'll go to the game."

"Take time when you need it."

"I will, Joe, thanks."

He stood in the cold air of the parking lot trying to clear his head. He picked a song he knew and ran the words through his mind. He tried to imitate Jonas's plastic façade, and he drove home because he had to.


	8. Chapter 8

Home smelled of apple pie.

Tony was almost annoyed, even if the first sound he heard was laughter. He wanted time with Cally alone, and he had been gripped with want for him on the short drive. He didn't want to wear his plastic face a second longer.

"Tony!" Cally said, storming out into the hallway just beyond the living room. He was flushed and glowing with life and laughter, and he had a smear of flour on his face. "Tony, I have to tell you something."

"He," Cally said, pointing with his entire arm at Josh watching TV behind them, "took me to the gym!" Josh started shaking his head, but Tony could see the smile. "I _like_ the gym."

"I'm getting that idea. You like pie too?" Tony stepped close enough to rub the flour off with his thumb.

"Pie is fun, Tony."

"Sean, that timer is telling you something," Donna called out.

"I have to check the pie," he said, running off.

"The gym?" Tony asked Josh, wandering into his living room, not surprised to see basketball on the television.

"We went to the one in the hotel. Nothing special. But he really got into it. Knew what to do mostly. His position was fine. Doctors said he could train his normal routine as long as no one assumes he knows when to stop. He has to relearn a lot of lessons, was their catch phrase."

"Makes sense. We'll have to find him a private trainer if the team can't take him on full time in-season."

"Not a bad idea. We could ask that big shot he works with now in the summer."

"Oh, him. Jesus, I hate that guy. Maybe I can just forget to tell Cally he exists."

"You wouldn't!" Josh said and sat up, alarmed.

"No, Josh, I wouldn't. But if ever I was going to be tempted, he would do it. Everything else is okay?"

"They've been cooking ever since we got home."

"Is that good, or ...?"

"It's weird, is what it is," Josh said, pitching his voice low. "Donna's happy, so I guess ― but he doesn't seem like my son anymore. You ― I, you don't feel that way, like Sean isn't even there. I can see that."

"I do, to be honest. Sometimes. I wish it could be easy just for ten minutes." That was going to get worse the more Tony went back to work, too. "But I can see Cally is there. I can see it in all sorts of ways. And I owe him the respect to let him be, Josh. I have noticed the age difference, and I've always felt like I had a responsibility to respect him as a man."

"What does that mean? You think I don't?"

"I think you feel like he's your son, Josh, which you might try to remember is something I understand." Tony took a breath to force himself not to take his temper out on anyone else that day. "It's not the same with Cally now, it's not. Maybe everything is harder, maybe it always will be. How the hell do I know?" Tony took off for the bedroom to change his clothes and cool off.

Cally chased him down, so maybe he had been yelling, he wasn't even sure. He had his shirt off and was contemplating his own lack of happy-seeming clothes when Cally wrapped him up from behind and buried his nose in Tony's hair.

"Babe," he said, leaning back. "I ― just," he struggled free and turned and wrapped his arms around Cally's waist and pulled. "I just need to hold on to you."

"Anytime. I love you, remember?" Cally's voice was tinged in amusement, and Tony wanted to sob. He did remember. He remembered how rarely Cally had ever said that. Maybe he'd rarely felt it. Tony didn't know, but he believed the man he was holding loved him all the time. He held on tighter.

"You smell like cinnamon," Tony said.

"Pie is cooked. Mom made dinner food too, things she showed me, but she said she wanted to go out with Dad so they could talk about their meeting today, I guess."

Tony tried not to show how relieved he was the McCallums were going to leave. "Everything else was okay?"

"Yeah, like I said. We can have food and talk about stuff."

"Okay, babe. Let me put a shirt on, and we'll go do that."

"You can just hide if you want to," Cally said. "I know how that feels. I sneaked off after my tests for a whole hour and walked around this indoor garden thing at the hospital. Never got caught."

"Babe, tell me if you need time by yourself, okay?"

"You don't get me all nervy."

"Promise me? I think you try too hard to make it easy for everyone else. You need to learn to be selfish."

"That's for shooting pucks, Tony."

"Okay, but it's true in real life too." He let go, told Cally he was fine, and watched him leave the bedroom seemingly believing that. Tony found a Cubs t-shirt that was red for some reason. The team colours were gold and blue, but he thought he remembered some event that it was for. He'd likely refused to wear it at the time.

He bypassed the McCallums in the living room and found Cally in the kitchen, presiding over a row of pies. "That is a lot of pie."

"Mom explained about freezers to me," he said. "So we will put these in when they cool off. We have pie from our first try to eat tonight."

"Are they sure they don't want to stay?" Tony asked, loud enough to carry. Cally made a face at him, but Donna called out that they were ready to go. He and Cally trooped out to see them out, and it was all very weirdly normal.

"Come here," Cally said when they'd gone, and he led Tony right where he'd been expecting, to Cally's office. "What is that?" Cally demanded, pointing at an old-fashioned wooden desk in the corner where a useless table had been.

"Oh, shit. I forgot I did that." Tony slapped his hand over his mouth and looked at Cally who was confused and maybe worried. "I got you that. After we had that fight. I wanted to say I was sorry, and that I was ― that ― that I love you. So I got you that to have a place in here to keep all your stuff, the paperwork, whatever. You can sit there to work if you like. If you like it."

"You got me a present?" Cally said, turning to look at the desk, and then back at Tony. "For me to use?"

"Yeah, it seemed like you have a pile of stuff, and maybe you want it to be private. The drawers are supposed to lock."

"Really?" Cally strode over and pulled open the drawers, found the keys and gathered up all his papers from various spots around the room. "I love this, Tony. I didn't realize it was for me. I ― Tony."

''Babe?"

"Sit with me. On my sofa." He grinned and sat and patted the seat next to him. When he had Tony snuggled in how he wanted, he said, "Mom said something today. When I didn't know where things were in the kitchen. I was having fun looking and finding things. She said, 'It's not like it's really your house.'"

"Oh, babe." Tony sighed and leaned into Cally. They had shit to talk about, important things. He didn't need this too.

"I didn't really understand, but I don't know where things are. I don't know what stuff is, and I saw this, and I thought it was yours because everything is yours."

"Babe, shh. Come on. Listen, I'll tell you how it happened because you aren't totally wrong about this. I bought this house on my own, but we had met already. Joe had made the job offer before I met you, and you were trying to ― I thought you were trying to get in my pants ― but I knew I wanted this job. Not working for the team where you played was a bonus to the deal that I pretended to myself didn't matter much. So I bought the house for me, but babe, come on, why does it have all that closet space in the master? Why is the master on the opposite side of the house from the kids' rooms?"

"I don't know?" Cally said. "I don't get it."

"Neither did I at the time. I was buying this place for me and the kids, and just because it was perfect for the guy who was doing a lot more than just trying to get in my pants, doesn't mean I admitted that." Tony laughed, but he could see Cally was still a bit confused. "I was having trouble accepting how much I wanted you. We're close to the bridge to get to New Haven. It's big and fancy, but I grew out of flashing my money around years ago. I wanted you to like it, is the truth. By the time you actually were getting in my pants, I could at least admit that much."

"But it's still your house? Is that what you mean?"

"Sort of. Yeah. My kids fill it up. My life fills it up, and you were away a lot, that's how the game works, and it was like you moved into my bedroom but not my house."

Cally frowned and thought about that, but he didn't nod like he understood. "I like my present," he said.

"You can have this room. Make it your spot, your office. Buy stuff. Buy bright and happy pictures for the walls or something. If you want. But the house is yours too. All of it. And you likely know more what's in that kitchen than I do."

"Oh! We should eat dinner so we can have pie. Come on."

The food was good, and the pie was fabulous, but they had to talk hospital while they were enjoying it.

"I think the caseworker scared my dad," Cally said. "He wants Sean back. His son. And I think she made him think it won't happen. I don't think he likes me very much."

"You are Sean. In a lot of ways."

"But I'm different too."

"Yeah, in good ways. I —" Tony didn't know what he should say about Cally's parents, what he shouldn't say. "I like you Cally, I think you know that. You, as you are. I'm afraid people will want to make you into who they think Sean is, but I'm finding things out about you I think were always there inside. I'm not sure that you're as different as your dad thinks."

"What do you mean?"

"You are really gay, Cally. And you're happy that way. I'm not sure I even understand what that feels like. I don't know if Sean ever did. Now you have me doing it. If _you_ ever did, but I know you wanted that."

"You mean the way I talk?"

Tony nodded. "The clothes you want to wear too, and your walk is all very 'look at my ass'. Babe, I'm looking, I got to tell you."

Cally laughed, delighted, and he cracked a few jokes about his freckles before he got serious. "Tony we have to talk about that too. Not enough hours in the day." He sighed and looked defeated.

"About what?"

"Sex," he said.

"Okay? What do you want to say?" Tony's heart pounded. No good ever came from a conversation that started that way, but he knew they had to have it.

"I don't know how to talk about it. I know I don't know what I'm doing."

"Do you feel like there's things you want you can't do or ask for, or ― I don't know what to say either, Cally. I get that it's all new for you."

"Before, when I wanted in your pants like you said. I wanted to fuck you? Is that what you're saying?"

"Yes, and other things. You were very," he had no words to describe that Cally, the force of nature who swept him up and never let go. "You were kind of pushy, to be honest, and I liked it because it felt like we were battling almost, like in a game, because at first I was saying no a lot, but giving in a lot because that's what I really wanted to do ―"

"I watched some porn," Cally said.

"Oh! No wonder you're confused."

Cally rolled his eyes just like Patty. "Yeah, but okay, I'm not dumb. We proved that today, and I have the paper that says it. I get that porn's not real, but it seems like there's rules, and I know this stuff, some of it. When I watched, it was things I know."

"What you want and what you feel is what matters," Tony said, wondering if that had ever been true. "For a man like me, Cally, I grew up believing I had to act a certain way, not be weak, not let anyone have power over me. It was hard for me at first."

"And Sean? Me?"

"I'm not sure. You didn't talk about that much. I bet those names on your phone are old boyfriends, though. I think you played hockey your whole life and you learned a lot of hockey lessons about being tough and acting tough and not letting anyone see you as weak."

Cally screwed up his face into a frown. "That seems so far away. Worrying about stuff like that. I feel really curious about things. A lot of things. But I don't want you to not, I don't know. Not be happy with me."

"Cally, babe, I love you. I know this is awkward, but we can sort it out. Try something, and we'll know if you like it or not." Tony didn't know what else to say to him. Cally wanted to make people happy, Tony knew that, and he was afraid the easiest way for that to happen was for Cally to learn how to be a really good imitation Sean. Who better to teach him? But Sean would never have said that looking like the right kind of man was a worry that was far away. Tony wanted all that bullshit far away — his wife and her priest, Josh and his issues. He hadn't known what it felt like to have it gone before Cally had woken up not caring about any of it.

Tony had memories of lying in bed, well satisfied, and recognizing he was in love with Cally, and having to either accept all that went with that or be miserable alone. It should have been an easy decision, and it hadn't been. He wanted it easier the second time, and he couldn't say any of that.

Tony set his fork down and tried to be as honest as he could. "When we first got together, you liked to top. You liked feeling in control, I think." He laughed. He had a vivid memory of Cally walking him backwards into the wall in Cally's old place in New Haven and grinding him into incoherence before they ever hit the bedroom. They'd been a little drunk, he thought, not sure if he was mixing up two different nights. "You liked pushing me around, is the truth. But when we knew each other better and we had nothing left to prove, we trusted each other. Things changed. Babe, you do swing that ass when you walk."

"I think that's what I've been thinking about, but it scares me. I don't ― it's a really weird feeling to be afraid and not know why. The MRI scared me, but that was ― this feels like the blank spot in my brain knows why but I don't."

Tony was fairly sure he knew what that blank spot used to contain, so he just told it to him straight: "Some men think if they fuck another man, they're still a tough guy, you know? But if they take it, they're a fag."

"Don't say that word," Cally said sharply, and then he asked softly, "Do you think that?"

"I used to. I think one thing you don't understand yet is that it's hard to make blank spots on purpose. It's hard to take a feeling or a thought away even if you want it gone. But I love being with you. I always feel that most. I guess you changed me." Tony was flushed and nervous and wanted to talk about anything but this. He needed a week to sit and worry about how much more Cally was going to change him or if Cally would get to a place where Tony couldn't follow him. Tony had chosen him once. He'd picked the man he loved and a life that had scared him at the time. He wasn't sorry, but it hadn't been easy always.

He dragged his attention back to the present because he had no control over the future or what went on in Cally's brain. Tony took Cally's hand in his and held on. "Today, I felt like I needed you so much. It was a long day. Stupid shit. People making me mad."

Cally nodded "I wanted to just hold you when you came home, and I didn't because Mom and Dad were here. I think that was wrong, but ― I don't know what it's right to do ever. I just guess sometimes. It's tiring."

"Cally do you just want to go to bed? Give up on this day?"

"We have things we should do."

"Yeah."

"Oh! I have to put the pie in the freezer like Mom showed me. Come help me."

Tony brought their dirty dishes with him and shoved them in the dishwasher while Cally slid three pies into bags and carefully slotted them into shelves in the freezer. 

"You had fun with your mom?" Tony asked.

"It was really interesting. I liked learning a thing without it being a big deal that I didn't know it. I think it was all new stuff. My mom figured out I'm not stupid too. Not sure about Dad."

Tony stood back and studied him. He never bothered with his hair, anymore, and it was a week past needing a cut and was getting a bit messy. He'd toned his look down for his parents with an almost ordinary coloured shirt and the tight black jeans that ruined his chances of not having all eyes on his ass. He was a hell of a man.

Cally turned around and tilted his head, confused by Tony's scrutiny, he supposed.

"Do you go in to the hospital tomorrow?" Tony asked.

Cally nodded. "Afternoon. You going to work?"

"Same. We play tomorrow night so I need to go watch the game. I'd ask you to come, but..."

"Yeah," he sighed. "I ― can we talk in the morning? There's some stuff we have to make hours for."

"Sure. Can I try something?"

"Um, okay?"

Tony tried to remember what it had felt like when Cally was in his bold and hungry phase when they had first met. He tried to channel that kind of bravado and self assurance. He had never known how real it had been for Cally, but fake worked until it became real. He stalked toward Cally; the walk was very different than a come on. It wasn't a look at me walk; it was a walk designed to make others back up. He had no height advantage, but he'd played a long time in the NHL. He knew physical stature didn't mean as much as people thought. The secret, he thought, was to leave no time for doubts to creep in. 

He started with his hands on Cally's waist, and he watched himself, not Cally's face, as he slid both hands up, tweaking a nipple on the way by. He tugged on Cally's shoulders, demanding Cally bend to him. He kissed him hard and pushy, putting all the want in it that he had.

He didn't have the height to shove his knee in between Cally's legs and knock them apart the way Cally had loved to do to him right before he'd grind into him. But he could use his hip effectively. He had Cally panting and groaning and clutching onto to Tony's shoulders like he was going to fall over in no time. His lips were cherry red when Tony stepped back to take a look at him again. He was messed up in all the best ways.

"Tony, holy shit!"

"Hmm. My best impression of you in the old days," he said. "I like to be a little more smooth usually."

"Show me smooth," Cally demanded.

"Yeah, still the same man," Tony said with a laugh. "Come over here, babe, and I'll show you smooth."

Cally adjusted himself and came close, tentatively, and with no idea where to put his hands. Tony took one and then the other and set them on his waist. He slid his palms up Cally's arms, watching his eyes, watching his pupils flare and his nose quiver as his breath caught.

Tony knew how to circle his thumb around the shell of his ear, and stroke his face. He touched his lips with his thumb, and Cally turned his head and kissed his palm, sighing out a lifetime of tension that he'd accumulated in a few days. "Come down here and kiss me properly," Tony said.

He let Cally try to take control, but Tony pulled back and lightly kissed just with his lips again, titled Cally's head with his hand, and started them going again. Tony pulled back again and then again, and it was half-tease, half-dance. "Move your hands, babe," he whispered. "Find some interesting places."

Cally was a quick study. Tony moaned into his mouth when Cally squeezed his ass, and he'd already figured out the knee trick, or it was somewhere inside his mind still.

"Babe, I don't want to come standing up in the kitchen."

"I don't know what to do next. I liked all of that, but ―"

"Shh. Sweetheart. Let's go to bed. Quickly. And I'll show you something else."

Tony didn't let Cally get his clothes off. He decided Cally could decide if getting head with his pants barely open and his shirt shoved out of the way was fun.

"Tony, fuck, Tony! Tony! Tony!" was about all Cally had to say on the topic.

Tony got up off the floor and flopped beside him feeling very satisfied with that response.

"I ― what do I do, holy shit, I can't even move," Cally said when he'd come down from coming hard.

"I have no time to wait," Tony said. He'd had sense enough to get out of his own trousers, so he shoved his hand in his shorts and rolled over to tear at Cally's mouth.

Cally learned fast. He ripped his mouth free, giving Tony a spot on his bottom lip that tasted of blood. Cally shoved him around until he was on his back and did the deed with his hand a lot less gently than in the past.

"You're bleeding," Cally said into his hair after.

"You bit me."

"Did not."

"You feel good?" Tony asked.

"Mmm. I feel perfect. Tell me what to set my phone alarm for, and we'll work in the morning. In my office," he added smugly.

"You like it?"

"I love it. I'm sorry I didn't get it at first."

"Cally, never be sorry. Never be sorry for anything."

"I love you, Tony. This was the best day."

"Babe," Tony said, moved almost to tears again, and not sure why.


	9. Chapter 9

Tony found enough to talk about with Cally in the morning that coming up with a plan to tell his teammates or the public what was going on never came up. Tony was avoiding it. He knew that. But he had work to do, so he told himself it was okay.

Jonas was attentive at practice, and Tony hung around the boards watching all the players. They had two other guys who had a little something and a lot of guys that were riding on hope.

When Tony had played, he'd always been a guy who had a lot of something. But he'd played on shitty teams when he was a kid. He had seen the Canadian kids at international events, guys like Cally who always played on good teams full of players who mostly never made the big leagues, but they were miles ahead of the kids Tony had played with. He had hated those Canadians, hated their red and white smugness, right up until he was in the NHL, and they were his teammates dishing him the puck like it was easy.

He'd got to thinking about it, the deeper he got into his playing career, that the rest of the team needed to be good enough, or the guys with something were just turning in circles instead of learning to play.

In his job with the Cubs, Tony had focused on the guys on the edges right from the start, and the team had started winning more than they should. He figured the Lions would ship him enough guys with something, he needed to have a team around them ready for them. No one got up in his face anymore about his fondness for the grinders and the marginal old minor league veterans. When it came time to sign them, and Tony said, 'No, not that asshole,' or, 'Yes that guy, he's a real good guy,' they listened to him.

He had built something with the team. But he didn't know if it would survive the publicity of an outing of his relationship with Cally. He had always figured that was too much to ask for. And as long as Cally had been willing to keep up the illusion of Sean McCallum, the hockey playing bro you'd let marry your daughter, Tony had never had to worry. Worrying now wasn't going to keep it from happening.

He caught up on his reports after practice and talked to Cally on the phone for a while.

"I had a therapy session with Jameson today," Cally said.

"Oh?"

"I told him that was it, I wanted someone else, and he was shocked. I told him I was spending all my time trying to not getting mad that he thought I was faking, and I couldn't spare a second for anything else, and he asked me what I wanted to talk about. So I told him all the stuff I have to do that scares me, and he said that by focusing on coping I'm just deepening the unconscious motive to not remember, so I left instead of punching him in the mouth."

"Always the good option. Jesus. He came right out and said that? What an asshole." Tony sighed. Like they needed another problem. "So we find someone else."

"Yeah, I talked to the caseworker after, and she said she could fit me in with a session with the occupational therapy instead and that maybe I should find someone new I wanted from outside the hospital. I don't know how, though. She talked about insurance and stuff, and I just said I want a good guy, and I don't know."

"Shit. Um. I don't either. Who can we ask?"

"I thought about the New Haven hospital. And we have that New York list, but I looked at it, and it's all neurologists."

"Oh, shit. I just thought of something too. You need someone who isn't going to freak out over you being gay."

"Oh! I have a thing. Hold on, it's in my desk." He rumbled around rattling paper, and then said, "I saw this in the hospital, a flyer for an LGBT centre. And it says they do mental health referrals. And what if I just called up and didn't say my name or anything and said can I have a list?"

"Yeah, why not. Don't be shy about telling them you aren't looking for something free or cheap or whatever. They're all so used to people with no insurance who can't pay. You could try Koss too."

"Okay, Andy told me how to make an email that isn't my name or like traceable to me, so I'm going to call and maybe google for more places and they can send me information to that address."

"We could go to a gay bar in New York and see how long it takes for a doctor to hit on you."

"Tony!" Cally said, laughing, then he said cautiously, "I've never been to a bar."

"I guess not."

"We need to talk about that, Tony."

"Bars?" he said hopefully.

"Telling people, so we can go out in public. You watch your game tonight, and, wait, are you working on Friday?"

"Nope. Team is off, and I'm up to date enough. We'll talk it out. I have an idea, and we can start over breakfast tomorrow."

"Can we have pie again for breakfast?"

"I don't get enough time in the gym for that."

"I need a gym!" Cally said with fervour. "I want to sort that out today too. So should I call the team trainer?"

"Does he know what's going on? Maybe you should wait until after the coaching staff are filled in. But you've got this asshole, who I hate, that you work with every summer. I'll send you his name, and just hit him with a text, no details, just say you need a local full-time guy. And as for facilities, you used to use the one here when you didn't want to drive to New Haven."

Tony checked the time and swore. "Babe, I gotta go. I got shit to do — dinner to eat with the coaches and then the game. I'll be late. Midnight or so, okay?"

"Okay. If you win, do you get all excited?" Cally asked, like it was an ordinary question.

"Not anymore."

"Oh, too bad. Okay. Maybe I'll be asleep then," he said in bad fake of unconcerned.

"Cally."

"Yes," he said brightly.

"I love your bad jokes."

"I love you," he said earnestly. "Okay, I have shit to do, too. See you."

Cally was asleep when he got home, but he rolled over and buried his nose in Tony's hair once he'd got into bed. "We can sleep late," Tony told him, hoping it might come true.

"Okay," Cally mumbled.

Cally had become a morning person, and Tony blamed the hospital. But there were compensations to being awake before they needed to get up.

"That sex in the morning thing was fun," Cally told him while he scrambled them eggs and made toast.

"You used to do that all the time," Tony said. He was watching Cally from the kitchen table, feeling very satisfied and content. "The sex part, too, but I meant eggs," he clarified.

"We did? The sex part I mean. But, Mom told me that I always loved eggs, so I figured out it was a thing I knew."

"Hockey player. You have all kinds of time in the morning after a lot of late nights."

"Is that an explanation for the sex part or the eggs part?" Cally said, turning around to smile at Tony.

"Both."

"We have things to talk about, Tony," Cally said as he served food. "Eat first, though. And then you can come in my office."

"Sometime today I have to write up a report, but we can talk. Patty is coming around dinner time."

"Yeah, he texted me. He thinks I'm more reliable than you for remembering. Can I talk about a thing now, though?"

"Sure, babe." Cally was dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt, and he looked oddly formal and serious. "I like this look," Tony said, flicking his fingers up and down, "I know you like happy colours, but that is very sexy too."

"Thank you," Cally said, preening a little. "Okay, so, the thing is, Eileen has sent me some texts."

"Did you answer?"

"No. I want to, but Dad was really adamant that I shouldn't. I don't get that, but I'm not a kid and neither is she, and I think I can just talk to her if I want. But I don't want to upset him any more than I already have."

"Cally, how he feels, that's not all on you. You can't turn yourself inside out for him. I feel for the man, I really do, but if he's pressuring you to do things you don't want, or to ― I don't know, he just seems like he's looking for control to me. I get that impulse. I feel like that about Patty all the damn time."

"They were on about me going to Vancouver yesterday, and I just said that you and I had things to work out, that we are talking through stuff, and I don't want to try to learn all the things I have to do and handle stuff without you, and that just started up the same argument that I don't understand. "

"Maybe Eileen can help with that, Cally, I'm not sure. You never talked about this. You seemed like you all you got along, but I think you kept your distance, and I never knew how you really felt."

"Really? I never talked about stuff?"

"We were both pretty busy. It was ― you were playing, had practices, and sometimes we'd spend an entire morning in bed and then barely see each other for a month. That's just how it is."

"That sounds terrible."

"It's worth it, babe. The game means a lot, gives you a lot, and I have always understood that."

"I don't," Cally said. "That's part of the problem with Dad. He's upset that I don't want to talk hockey all the time or make plans to practice, or even ― he wants me to miss it, I can tell by things he says. So he got upset that I wanted to do other things. 'You should be thinking about coming back,' he said." Cally quoted his father in an exaggerated stern tone that was both funny and revealing. Josh was trying to treat him like a kid.

"And? Do you miss it?" Tony asked, nervous of the answer. He was shocked himself at Cally's indifference to the game he'd been passionate about, immersed it. But he also knew you couldn't force someone to love it enough to make it their whole life, even if they had the talent.

"I didn't know I could make eggs until yesterday," Cally said with a shrug.

"Point." Tony sighed and finished his eggs. They were good, but not exactly the way Cally used to make them. "One step at a time, okay. I think we're looking way too far down the road here." The road led to frightening places, and he didn't want to contemplate them when there were a dozen hard jobs to do in the next few days.

"Okay, so we pick what's important like usual, and get that done."

They went into Cally's office and sat on opposite sofas. "So we actually get something done," Cally had said with a grin. "I need a trainer," Cally said slumping back and stretching out his legs, "so I texted that guy, and he just sort of brushed me off in response, so fuck him. And I want to call the team guy, but I can't, and even if I could work with him, how do I get there?"

"Fuck."

"Yeah," Cally said, but smiled a little smugly. "So I called the DMV and asked about getting a new license, and they said I have to take the written and driving test. There's a book online to study from, and it's a pain to read on my phone, but at least I can start on that one."

"We could get a car service until you're okay to drive," Tony said.

"Oh! Good idea, I'll put that on the list to do today. But I need to talk to the trainer."

"You can't talk to him without the coach hearing something's up, and then the guys will, and we need to just start telling people."

"Yeah, I know that." Cally looked deflated by the idea.

"Today?" Tony said. "The team—the guys, I mean, not the press, but the press soon, too, or it's going to leak."

"This really scares me. The whole team is a lot of guys, and they're all my friends. I just ― that's a lot of people to hurt all at once."

"Babe, it isn't you hurting them."

"Feels like it."

"Yeah, okay. I hear you. I wish I could tell you different, but it's going to be hard. Worse if we wait."

"How? How do we start it? Make it happen or whatever."

"You start with the captain, that's Dylan Jones' job to run a deal like this. We should call him up, and maybe this time, Cally, you should let me do it for you. I know the guy a little, and what if I asked him to come down? We can all talk, and he can set up something for the time he thinks is right. They don't play today, so he's not going anywhere until afternoon."

"Yeah, okay," Cally said and sat up straight. "I can do this."

Tony sure as hell hoped so because none of them had any choice. He got out his phone and found Dylan's number and called before anyone could change their minds. He got the man to agree to come over in a few hours. Dylan had wanted to know why, of course, and Tony had put him off with some vague talk that just raised alarm bells all over the place, but it wasn't like they weren't valid warnings. "That was not smooth," Tony said when he hung up.

"Yeah. Speaking of, I failed at finding a therapist. I tried to email that centre and they never answered. I called a couple of places, clinics, whatever, and they said I need a specialist. And I gave up." Cally looked frustrated and defeated, and Tony wanted to fix it for him.

"I got nothing, Cally, short of looking in New York, which there's no way we can handle right now. You have nothing today at the hospital?"

"Nope. They had me set up to come in for a blood test, but they said to do it Monday but come in if I feel sick or anything."

"You don't do you?"

"No? Why? The doctors think I'm fine, they just don't want to say so."

"What if we went skating instead of dealing with all this like grownups?"

"Yeah!" Cally looked excited imediately. "Yeah! I want to try." He deflated fast and said, "Dad was talking about my contract and insurance and stuff. Like I should find out for sure if I'm covered if I get hurt. I don't think I'm allowed to go on the ice until the doctor says so."

"So we don't tell anyone," Tony said. "I took my kids skating without killing them, and you're not physically impaired, you're not clumsy. We'll just go and then play dumb if we get yelled at. It's skating, babe, and if you can walk, you can likely do it too."

"Where?"

"Cubs' rink. I can get us in the arena door, so we don't have to see anybody, and I'll tip a couple of hundreds to the guys who look after the ice if we make too much mess."

"Let's go," Cally said, enthusiasm back. "I have skates here too, about four pairs in the one closet, so you tell me which to take."

"My second pair are here too, I don't even need to go to my office."

Cally insisted on changing clothes since they were doing a fun thing. He found a red and gold Lions hoodie and an orange long-sleeved shirt that clashed horribly with it, and he looked very New Cally.

Tony had suggested he find jeans that weren't as tight too, so unfortunately, he wasn't as much fun to look at as usual.

The practice facility was never really empty, but there was no one visible when they came in. The lights were half off, but it was good enough. He watched as Cally put on his skates, and tightened up his laces. "I feel like this is right," he said, sounding unsure. "Tight, like this."

"Looks good to me," Tony said, stepping onto the ice. "I'm going to stand here when you first try it, but then if you feel like you can just go, I'll let you. If you fall, don't put your hand out like you think you should, take it on your shoulder and your hips or ass."

Cally nodded at that, stood up, and flexed his legs a little, and then he stood still with his eyes closed and his hands on the Plexiglas at the door onto the ice. He breathed in deeply. "I feel things. It's not a memory. I feel things."

"Open your eyes before you come out here."

He did and flashed Tony a huge grin. He stepped on the ice, hand on Tony's shoulder in a crushing grip that eased immediately. "I love you, Tony," he said, and then he skated off down the ice like he'd never had a doubt.

Tony watched him for a bit and then started moving with him, backwards in front of him, watching his form, his edges. Cally wasn't trying to go very fast but it all looked right.

Tony said, "Watch this, then do it." He skated at speed towards the net and stopped suddenly and changed direction.

Cally came after him faster, bigger, and he didn't control the stop well enough and wiped out. "Shit," he hollered out too loud.

He didn't need to be told, though, he got up and did it again. It took a few tries until he had it perfectly, and they did some cornering and some backwards moves.

"I love this," Cally said. "I love going fast, I love how it feels."

"Good to hear," Tony said. He'd gone to lean on the boards, and Cally came close, too close, and leaned in like he wanted to kiss, and Tony said, "Cally, someone could be watching." He almost pushed Cally away but stopped himself in time.

"Shit. Sorry. Shit."

"Babe ― "

"No, it's fine, sorry." Cally turned and skated around in a few circles. "We should go. We don't want to leave Dylan in the driveway wondering where the hell we are."

Tony nodded and went to change out of his skates. Cally joined him and stayed quiet as they drove home. Tony's gut was churning. He never wanted to push Cally away, never, and he'd told himself he could handle the new version fine.

"Babe," he said. "I love you. You know that, right?"

"Yeah. I just want to think, okay. I need to think about stuff."

It wasn't Jonesy in their driveway, it was Cally's parents, pacing around and looking about five minutes from calling the cops.

Tony pulled in all the way into the garage, and Josh and Donna came in with them.

"Where have you been?" Josh demanded as soon as Cally was out of the car.

"We were worried, Sean," Donna added.

"You guys said you were coming over later. And we went skating," Cally said, confused.

"Skating!" Josh said.

Donna patted Josh's arm placatingly and said, "We tried calling, and when you didn't answer, honey, we came over. Was that safe, going on the ice?"

"Sure," Cally said. "I fell on my ass once, but I figured it out. I had fun. Let's go inside where it's not cold."

They all ended up in the living room, but Cally strode off to the kitchen announcing he wanted coffee, so Tony filled the McCallums in on their plans to have Dylan Jones over. "He should show up at any time."

"This seems rushed," Josh said, and then he pigeon-holed Cally as soon as he came back in the room, "And I told you, Sean, not to skate without talking to the team doctor first."

"I'm not hurt," Cally said, reasonably. "I don't need the doctor to tell me that. I was fine."

"You said you fell, Sean," Josh said, voice rising.

"Sure. I fell on my ass when I was trying to stop really quick. I got it the next time."

"Sean ― "

"No," Cally said, voice rising too. "I had fun. I loved it, and I'm not letting anyone take that away from me. I have to spend my entire day trying to sort out my life. I'm allowed to have one fun part. And it was about sorting out my life anyway. So is this other thing today, meeting this guy."

"We just want to help you, Sean," Donna said.

"You do help me. All the time. Pie is a very important part of life, and you taught me that." Cally favoured his parents with an engaging grin that fell flat. "I want you all to come with me when I go ― oh that's him, isn't it."

"Yeah," Tony said, "everyone, sit down, try to relax, and we won't scare the nice man away from helping us."

He let Jonesy in and took his coat and avoided his eyes. He pretended he couldn't see the guy was uncomfortable. Having the guys over was not something Cally had ever done once he'd moved in. Living in Bridgeport, not New Haven, had been a convenient excuse to just never deal with it. They'd never tested the limits of Cally's teammates' acceptance.

"Jonesy, do you know Cally's parents? I bet you've never met," Tony said and introduced Josh and Donna. He let Jonesy sit in the nearest empty chair. "Do you want a drink? Coffee?"

"I'm good. Is Cally here?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Cally said, striding in from the kitchen. He still had the orange shirt on, but the hoodie had vanished. "Jonesy, I have some things to tell you." Cally sat in Tony's chair, which was closest to their guest. He turned and faced him, one leg drawn up. Tony decided to lurk by the kitchen door and let Cally handle it.

"You look really good, man. I thought ― they said you were too sick to play."

"I know what they said, but it isn't exactly true. Jonesy, this is really hard to explain, so try to bear with me, and I'll do the best I can. I _was_ sick. About a month ago? The flu or something?"

"Yeah, you were fine after." Jonesy sat up and really looked at Cally, like he'd added up all the bits that were odd, starting with the orange shirt and his messy hair and ending with the sort of pleasantly blank expression Cally had perfected for times in public when he was confused. It was, Tony was coming to realize, his 'tone it down' face too.

"I wasn't fine," Cally said. "I had a side effect from the virus that caused swelling in my brain, and that swelling caused brain damage." 

Tony was shocked. Donna gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth. Cally hated that word and retreated to jokes about his brain being broken most of the time.

"What?" Jonesy demanded. "Like a concussion or something?"

"Not really," Cally said, shaking his head. "I have total memory loss. And I know memory loss happens from a concussion, we had a talk about that at the hospital the other day, but this is not like that at all."

"Memory loss? Like for a few days or something, the week before you were sick. I know a guy that happened to."

"No, Jonesy, not like that. I have no memory of anything, nothing from my entire life until a few days ago. I only know your name because Tony told me."

"Jesus. No. Cally, no. That's, but ― fuck, you seem a little weird, but you don't act all ― come on!"

"I can do things. I can talk to you. I can scramble eggs real good. I can skate, but maybe don't tell anyone I told you that. Sometimes I don't know what I know until I start doing it. But I have no memory of you or anything we ever did or said. I'm sorry if that hurts. I know it does."

Jonesy was stunned, but he was also a captain. "Cally, that's not on you, man. And I'm a big boy, I can take it." He rubbed at his face and stared. "This must be hard for you."

"No, not really, not like for them," Cally gestured to his parents, but Tony saw Jonesy not taking his eyes off of Cally.

"Yeah, this is going to sound weird, but you sure sound like Cally. Worried about everyone else first."

"People have said stuff like that. I have to just believe them because I don't know what I was like."

"What do you need, Cally?" Jonesy asked, all business. "Anything I can do, I'm doing it."

Cally smiled, a little too softly for Jonesy's comfort by the look of him. Cally toned it down and said, "Here's how it is. We went in to the office in New Haven and talked to Mr Steigler and Mr Graves, and we need to do that again to talk to the guys, Jonesy. I have texts and stuff from everybody, and I just have to ignore them, and I feel every time like I'm doing a bad thing."

"But you don't know these guys," Jonesy said quietly.

"No. No, I want to, though. I want to let them see me, see if they like me still. But I also need to workout and work with the trainer and be around the place."

"See if they like you," Jonesy said, shaking his head. "Wow. When, Cally?"

"We think that we can't wait. If I met some reporter in the store or something, I wouldn't know who they are. We sort of sneaked off to go skating today, but I can't keep hiding."

"No," Jonesy said, looked around. "That's a good point. But, uh, Tony?" Jonesy stood up and turned to him, so Tony came in the room all the way. "We tell the guys, the press will hear."

"Yeah, I know," Tony said. "The team is dragging their feet, but we can't wait. And I don't want reporters digging around. Can we do this today? And then the bosses will have to do something with the press."

"We aren't waiting out a treatment here, or a cure or whatever?" Jonesy said. He was a big man, just over thirty, tough and talented and soft-spoken, but firm. He was a good man.

"No," Cally said, standing up too. "It's likely to be mostly permanent, and so far, nothing at all has come back. They think some memories might, but it might take years. Or never. I ― Jonesy this is hard to say, but I feel things for some people, just not everyone."

"What do you mean?"

Tony glanced at Josh, who had his head down and was frowning. Donna looked lost.

"I feel really drawn to some people. I feel very safe with my mom, and it's taken me a few days to understand that's what I was feeling. Safe."

Jonesy nodded, but he looked almost as lost as Donna. "I think what I'm going to do, guys, is drive up to the office there and tell Steegs we're calling a meeting today. Three o'clock. It's my call when we talk about stuff, and I'm making it. You guys come up and I'll stand with you Cally. It'll just be us, though, no one else, but maybe your mom should come with you to the office."

"Yeah, okay. Will you come?" Cally asked Donna, and she nodded, tears in her eyes.

"The coaches have to be told, the staff," Tony said.

"Yeah, you want to call Steegs and tell him that?" Jonesy said.

"I can," Cally said. "I'll just tell him it has to happen and that I want to not ruin my training."

"Yeah, good call." Jonesy nodded again. "Jesus, you're in there. But you're not the same guy."

"I can change this before I go," Cally said, plucking at his orange shirt.

"Maybe you should," Jonesy said. He kept glancing towards the doorway, like he wanted to leave. "Okay, Cally, um …"

"I know how to do this too," Cally said with a grin and clasped Jonesy's hand and slapped him on the back.

"Text me when you get there," Jonesy said, "If you meet with coaches, I'm sitting in."

"Okay. I like you, Jonesy, you try to help. That's real nice. I want you to know that if guys have questions or stuff to say, you can tell them to call me. I'm a big boy too, and I can do this. I'm good at being brain damaged, it seems."

Jonesy left, and Cally slumped down in the chair looking less than good at it at that moment. "I need you both to come with me," Cally said to his parents, "but you really have to stop arguing with me over everything. This is hard, really hard. I can't cope with it and have fights too."

"Son, we just want ―" Josh said.

"I know what you want!" Cally stood up and paced. "You can't have it. I can't give it to you, and it hurts that you don't see anything in me you like."

"Sean, we want you to be happy. All parents want that for their children," Donna said.

"Well, I'm not a child. I'm a man. And I have a lot to do, and I need the space to do it in. I've decided something. I'm not coming back to Vancouver with you. I want to visit. I've been thinking this over, and when I feel like I have a routine — training, my driver's licence, other stuff me and Tony have to work out between us. When I feel normal, settled, then I'll come visit."

"Are you talking about months, Sean?" Donna asked.

"Maybe. I don't know the future any better than I know the past. Tony needs to feel like he can go to work like normal, and the kids have to feel like their home is settled down. We can't stand around here and argue when Patty comes home today."

"We can," Tony said, with a smile for Cally. He was touched Cally was laying down the law for his boy, though.

Cally rolled his eyes and then grinned. "He's not as good as Andy at joining in."

"Give him a few years."

"Years," Cally said. "I love how that sounds, all the memories piling up. I'll know so many things, so many people. Which is the other thing," Cally turned to his parents again, and they looked fully beaten down, Tony almost wanted to tell Cally to lay off, but pulling back wasn't going to win the game. "I need to talk to Eileen. This is wrong that I'm not texting her back when she sends me messages. I need to see her, but if she has to work, we can talk on video or something. Andy can teach me."

"I don't want her upset," Josh said, standing up too.

"She already is, Josh," Donna said softly. "We all are."

"I'm calling her," Cally said, and he had his phone out and in his hand before anyone could move to stop him. "Eileen," he said, "it's Cally."

They all watched his face go through a dozen emotions as he listened to his sister. Tony wanted to go and hold him while he tried to explain it all to her. "I know this is horrible," Cally said. "No, Eileen, not for me. It feels normal for me. It's you that it's hard for. Trust me, okay? I'm good at this one thing. Dealing with this."

Cally looked like he was going to cry, and Tony gave up his reticence and strode over and took his hand. Cally reeled him in until they were tight together, hands clasped between them. "I think this is really hard on the phone," Cally said. "I want to see you, but I'm staying here for a while before I visit." Cally was silent for a long time, and then he slumped until his head was nearly on Tony's shoulder. "Not you too?" he said plaintively. "Eileen, Tony holds me up. Literally right now. I don't know what you think is bad about him, but it hurts to hear that about him." Cally listened for a long time and then stood up, jaw set. "I'm a fully functional man, Eileen. I have no memory, that doesn't mean I can't think for myself. Tony thinks you guys are scared, and I understand that. But you can't drag me to Vancouver and shove me in my old room and pretend I'm a baby again."

The next silence was short and then Cally said loudly, "You can't." .

Tony reached up and set his hand on Cally's heart and felt it pound. "Cally, you're getting very upset," Tony said quietly.

"She is just so unreasonable," Cally exploded, and Donna burst out laughing and then started sobbing.

"What the hell is going on?" Josh demanded.

Cally waved them all to silence and listened to the phone. "No, I don't remember ever saying that, Eileen. I don't. I don't want to lie to you even if it hurts. But you are just driving me crazy here."

"Cally," Tony said quietly. "You said you feel things."

"I'm sure feeling them now," he said loudly. And then he made a face of comical comprehension.

He explained it to Eileen, how he believed he felt differently with some people, and by some miracle, they were laughing in minutes while Cally told her about his first happy shirt and followed it up with a story from the hospital Tony had never heard before. "I have to go, Eileen. I have a really scary thing to do today, and tomorrow maybe worse, but I'll get the boys to help me understand Skype or whatever. I think we should talk a lot. You don't even know me yet, and I don't know you, but I want to, okay?"

He finished the call with a cryptic-sounding, "Yeah, I know that, but that's for me to decide, Eileen. I will call you when I have time to talk more."

Tony got a call from Steigler just as Cally ended the call, so he hid himself away in Cally's office to get reamed out for doing an end run around the front office by going straight to Dylan Jones with their plans.

"It's not an end run," Tony said calmly when Steigler had wound down. "This is how it's supposed to work. This is player business. Cally went to his captain, and his captain is going to bring it to the boys. It's not your job to tell them his personal business. It's his decision to make. Jonesy told you about it, and you are in all the loops here. We don't want any antagonism, but I'll be honest with you, Steegs, we can't fuck around here any longer. Cally wants to call up Mickey and set up a training schedule. We need to find him a driver so he can go workout. He wants to skate, and you aren't going to sign off on that until Koss gives him a physical. But he'll likely do his skating at the Cubs' rink, so how many people is that now who know something's going on beyond your story that he's sick?"

"Tony, just, fuck you, okay? Fuck you for being right about this. Jesus." He heard Steigler sigh, and then he heard banging on a keyboard. "I will call the coaches into the board room at two if you can get here in time for that. You can dry run with them. You want all the staff or just the big three?"

"Big three is fine," Tony said, but we'll tell them the trainers need to be clued up fast.

"Okay, I've sent a note to Koss that he is to schedule a physical ASAP, and I told the PR department I want a complete plan on going public on my desk by the time you guys are in with the players."

"Not us, just Cally. He wants his parents to come, and I'll drive everybody down, and I'll meet Milchuk and his guys. They might have some questions I can answer. But players' meetings are players' meetings."

"Okay, okay, I hear you. Jesus. Is there better news from his doctors?"

"Same story," Tony said, briskly. "Cally wants to get a routine down, and I don't blame him because this week has felt like a month of chaos. He wants a workout routine, he wants to skate ―"

"Can he skate?" Steigler asked.

"He can walk fine," Tony hedged.

"Maybe if I don't ask the question, you don't have to tell me how you sound so sure?"

"Yeah, maybe," Tony said with a laugh. Steigler had been a player, after all. He did know how they operated. "The plan is that when Cally has that routine down, he wants to go spend some time with his parents and his sister. But before that, I think we want to find a specialist in New York and have a second opinion on him."

"That sounds sensible. But you're telling me to not think he's going to make a miraculous recovery in time for the playoffs."

"That's the size of it."

"Tony, I don't know if I should even ask this, but you're a tough son of a bitch. Will he ever play again at all?"

He wasn't surprised by the question. He was surprised Steigler was asking it so straight. Everybody else phrased it as the big fear they couldn't face. But Steigler had watched a lot of guys come and go, and he had a future to plan for the whole team; he couldn't look away. "I don't know is the truthful answer. But the other thing is, Steegs, I don't know if he'll want to. You know as well as me, it's not can you, it's do you want it more than anything else. He can't remember why he ever wanted it that much."

"I've yelled that at guys. 'Do you remember why you ever wanted in this game?' Maybe I won't be able to do that so easily anymore. Okay, here's a heads up you can pass on to him that I will also forward to his agent today. We're putting him on the long-term injured list, and I'm looking for somebody to try to fill that hole in my lineup, and if I ask you if you've got that on the Cubs, you'll laugh at me."

"I won't laugh Steegs, I'll rip a strip off you. We told you in September the roster at our end was thin. You already got what we had that was good."

"This Swedish kid we traded for, he's not some secret star forward, I take it."

"He's a flake. A good flake some of the time. Ask me about him next year in September."

"Okay, okay. I need to get busy looking before every fucking GM knows why I need a guy and the price goes up."

"You figure they don't already know?" Tony asked. "One agent knows a secret, pretty soon the whole fucking world knows it."

"They know something is fishy. Yeah. Shit. Tony, are you okay here?"

"Sure," he said easily. "It is what it is, and we'll get through it."

"You're back at work?"

"Yeah, I worked with Jonas, went to the game last night. They're out of town this weekend, so I can keep my nose out of it, let coach worry about him for a bit. And then we'll see where we are next week. I want to go through everybody's files, have a look at their status. If you're pulling guys, and it's that time of the year anyway, I want to be ready."

"Okay, sounds good, Tony. Call me, or get Joe to call me if we need to talk about things. I think this is a problem we all have to work on together here."

"Sure. Joe can do that." Speaking of end runs, Tony thought, he didn't want to be cutting Joe out of any loops either.

"Can you guys do two o'clock? I've got the meeting set up."

"Sure, no problem, we'll leave in a bit."

Tony went out to find Cally lounging in his chair in the living room, eating a sandwich. "Mom made me eat," he said and then smiled like the sun coming out. "It's nice to have someone around who loves you enough to yell at you."

"Sean," Donna said, fondly. "Oh, Sean, you say the weirdest things that make my heart break. In a good way, this time, I think. There's more in the kitchen, Tony."

"Okay, I'll eat fast," he said, heading in that direction. "We are meeting with the coaching staff at two. So we need to go soon. You were going to change, Cally. And find that hoodie you had on. It's old, and it's not a bad idea to remind everyone how long you've been on that team."

"Am I making statements with my clothes again?"

"Yeah," Tony hollered from the kitchen. "Get used to it."

"Fine," Cally answered back, louder than he needed to.

Tony had a ham sandwich with hot mustard in under a minute and chugged a bottle of water. He hadn't checked his work email since just before they went skating, and his phone had a daunting pile of messages on it. He took the time to see if any were from the kids, and found one from Eileen. He opened it with trepidation, but all she wanted was some reassurance that her dad wasn't being too big of a dick. He sent her a quick note telling her what they were up to that day and suggested she expect Cally to wait until the next day to get in touch. He never answered her question. If she had to ask, she already knew.

He went to change into something unobtrusive and businesslike, and he found Cally in the bedroom, looking at drawers full of things some other man had bought, at least that's how it had to seem to him.

"Babe," Tony said. "Come here."

"Why?"

"Because I need you, come here."

He came, and he was a powerful man with strong arms. Tony held onto him as hard as he could. "So it's just a happy accident that what you needed was also what I needed?" Cally said softly.

"Not an accident. That's how it's supposed to work."

"Okay, we have to go," Cally said pulling away and standing up straight. "Tell me what to wear."

"The sexy black shirt, or one like it. Nice and tight. You're not trying to convince them you're not gay. They know that. And it makes you look healthy. The guys just need a reminder you're one of them, so that's what the hoodie is for."

"Does everyone know I'm gay?"

"Far as I know. Maybe if there's new guys who are really dumb, babe, but I don't think so."

Tony watched him get changed and discovered his messy hair was intentional, as he spent five minutes carefully arranging it into a disaster. Even hockey didn't have guys dumb enough not to catch on that this Cally was gay. They were all just going to have to get used to that.


	10. Chapter 10

Tony loaded the McCallum family up in his car again, and they drove off. Josh was conspicuously quiet. Everyone was quiet. Cally was intent on his phone, non-stop texting by the look of him, but no one was talking.

"Hey, can you tell Patty where we are?" Tony asked. "Andy too because I am not privileged enough to know his weekend plans in advance now that the season is over."

"It is nice when you can just look up their whereabouts on a website, isn't it?" Donna said. "I loved it when Eileen played volleyball in University and I knew where she was some of the time."

"Did she?" Cally asked. "Tell me about it."

"Oh, honey, she wasn't serious. Not like you. Not with that passion you had since you were little. But she was good, and made a lot of friends and got to travel a little."

"I need pictures of you guys," Cally told his mother, "I looked in my phone, and I only have a few. It's kind of strange how few."

Tony said, "You switched phones a while ago. Your old one might be around, or they might be all on some cloud somewhere. Ask Andy, he might know how to find things."

"Okay."

Cally went back to texting, and they all got as quiet as Josh for the rest of the drive.

There was a member of the PR staff in the parking lot when Tony pulled in. He knew the guy a little. He'd been an underling of some kind back when Tony had worked for the team as on-air talent. The PR staff had never respected his thoughts on anything they did, so he'd learned to keep them to himself. He hadn't been loved by most in the department.

The kid looked like less of a kid, and Tony decided to do him the courtesy he'd never gotten and assume the guy had a clue until proven otherwise. "I don't remember your name, sorry," Tony said to start them off, maybe not on the best foot.

"Oh, um, Mr Grenier, yeah, it's Nelson."

"Right, okay, Nelson. You know who Cally is, and this is Josh and Donna McCallum. They need to be looked after right. We're going in with Cally to talk to the coaches, but then he's under Jonesy's care after that."

"Okay, I was supposed to take you all to the boardroom."

"Lead on, Nelson."

The hallway was suspiciously underpopulated for a practice day, and the boardroom Nelson took them to was empty. "We can find seats, Nelson, go tell whoever sent you that we're here, and get us some coffee," Tony said.

"You are so bossy," Cally said when they were alone.

"Amazing how easy it is to get hockey people to obey you. They're all too used to a coach voice," Tony said absently while he looked over the room. "Cally, I don't want this to be my show. It's yours, and you can handle it, so how be I sit over here," Tony moved to the far end of the table, "and Donna, you should too, and then he can see us."

"So I sit here?" Cally said, pointing at a spot just inside the door that put him at an angle to the top of the table, but close to it.

"Sure. Leave the top spot for Steegs."

They weren't alone for long. An entire catering setup was wheeled in with bottled drinks and coffee and tea. Steigler showed up shortly after. He stayed standing, hands in his suit pockets and shot the breeze with Josh in a practised way. Cally looked nervous.

Milchuk came in with his two assistants and they sat where Tony had manoeuvred them to, directly across from Cally. Steigler took his seat. "Graves is busy today, so it's just me here," he said, by way of bringing them to order. "Doctor Koss is around, and you can go talk to him when you get a chance, Cally."

"Excuse me," Dylan Jones said, coming in dressed almost identically to Cally, only in workout pants, not jeans. He dropped into the seat beside Cally and shoulder checked him in a friendly way. "Sorry I'm late, I had to talk down the conspiracy theory that the team was moving to Quebec City and that's why we were having the players' meeting."

Everyone laughed except Cally.

"What _is_ your meeting about?" Milchuk asked. There was an edge to it. He didn't like being in the dark.

"The same thing this one is," Cally said smoothly. "I have some things to explain to the guys, but I needed to talk to you first."

"Okay," Milchuk said, "let's hear it."

"This is difficult to explain and hard to understand. I know that, and I'll try to make sense for you," Cally said, and Jonesy nodded along with that. Milchuk sat back and looked less combative. Cally kept going. "You guys all know I was sick a few weeks ago?"

"Yeah. Flu, Koss said," one of the assistants said, Lester Simpson, not a bad defenceman in his day, not a very good coach in Tony's opinion.

"It looked like it," Cally said. "Everyone says that, but it wasn't. It was something ordinary, but it caused a side effect." Cally was getting smoother with the story, the virus, the swelling, the memory loss. He got to the point faster, and that made it less painful for everyone. But the big hit still shocked them. "The truth is, guys. I don't even know your names. I looked them up. I can guess who is who. But I don't know."

They sat in stunned silence, and Tony caught Jonesy in a tiny smile. Ken Milchuk's arrogance was legendary. He was one of the most famous faces in the game, and here was Cally telling him he had no idea who he was. Chucky was man enough to introduce himself, though, and the assistants followed suit.

The conversation took the expected turn. It was getting to have a formula — the denial, the assumption that Cally was talking about concussion-type memory loss, the clarification, the denial again, the slow coming of acceptance, and then for this crowd, the realization that Cally might well be an ex-player and therefore not their problem anymore. Cally and his boyfriend might vanish from the game. Graves had had a gleam in his eye over that, Tony was sure.

They were spinning their wheels, asking the same questions Cally couldn't answer, and it was Jonesy who called a halt. "Coach, I want to take Cally down to the locker room now. We'll talk to the boys. Hash it out. You know what they're like, so this could go long. You want us after?"

"No, we're done for today. We've got skate tomorrow at ten."

"Okay, coach, come on Cally, let's go up ice against ― the meanest guys you can imagine."

Cally stood up and focused on Jonesy, forgetting the coaches were even in the room it seemed. "I watched the Stingrays last night, Jonesy. They looked mean," he said in his normal voice, showing his enjoyment of life and his willingness to laugh.

"Those fucks, Cally. Mean doesn't cut it," Jonesy said, as they went out the door. Tony could hear him ranting all the way down the hall.

"Okay, Tony, what the fu ― um, hell is going to happen here?" Milchuk said.

Tony had never played for the man. Milchuk had been the new broom that had come in the year after Tony had retired, but he'd heard things his whole career about what a hardcase he was. "I can't answer that with any more certainty that Cally can," Tony said. "We wait. We see what Cally can do, and we'll discover what things he can't do at some point. He wants to train. Let's start there."

"Yeah, okay, okay. Good thought. Lester, you get Mickey up to speed, and tell him to set up a time to evaluate him."

"Koss needs to pass him first." Steigler said. It was the first thing he'd said in ages.

"So we get that done," Milchuk said.

"You skipped a step Chucky," Steigler told him. "While Cally is off having his revival meeting with the boys, we need to talk PR. So if you want to stay Mr and Mrs McCallum, you can, but I'll be honest with you, I want to talk to Tony on this because he is a hard headed bastard who is tough enough to kick me in the ass to get this done."

"I want to stay," Donna said firmly. "I think you all forget how much stress this is for Sean. Everything is new. Everything. He's like a kid in that way, and I know he's not a child or child-like, but no person can handle too much. When a child is first in school, they just come home some days and collapse. He was like that his first really serious year of hockey too. I assume you gentlemen are familiar with that."

"He doesn't have time to collapse," Tony said.

"So we had best make certain he doesn't," Donna said tartly. As a trigger man for a setup pass, she was fantastic. Tony approved.

Steigler got up and hollered out the door for Donny Albright, his head of PR. Tony got his most realistic fake, pleasant smile out and almost laughed at how much he was channelling Jonas. Donny had been around for a few years, a few too many in Tony's opinion. Their cash-strapped operation on the Cubs was more tuned into the modern world than what Albright was doing with the Lions. Tony had history with Donny.

Donny didn't show it. He shook hands with everyone and offered sympathy in a way that would have made more sense if Cally were dying, not down the hall testing the limits of his grasp of profanity. He got right to it, in his usual take over the meeting style. "Steegs, you wanted a plan. I think it has to be two stages here. I think we do some kind of scrum, and I'd like to do that in the locker room, show how normal everything is. Just like a post-practice deal. Short and sweet. And then we do a sit down with a reporter. Not our girl, that just leads to the vultures complaining we're massaging the story. And we work the sympathy angle. We can do the first part tomorrow after skate, and I can set up the interview after. If we do it with the television people they'll air it during the game."

"Donny, we should have had you meet the man, I think. I apologize for not doing that," Steigler said.

"I've met Cally before, Steegs."

"He's a new man, Donny," Milchuk said. "Looked at us all and said right out he had no idea who the hell we were. You put him in a regular scrum and try to pretend he's okay, like he's practising — the worst reporter in the group will smell a rat."

"We don't want that," Steigler said. "We need something more formal. We'll use the big room in the main arena, and we need to give the national news guys a heads up that this is a story they want to cover, and we should have done that already."

"Well, okay, if you think that's what it has to be," Albright said. "But I want to go ahead with the one-on-one."

"No," Donna said after everyone else had failed to shoot that plan down. She beat Tony by a second. "I said you don't understand, and you don't. Wait until after the thing with the press, whatever you call it. Then you decide if he's ready for an interview or if maybe you all have to wait for him to catch up. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you don't. But he can't tell you ahead of time what he knows how to do."

"You can't decide how you're going to score the goal before you know if you can even get the puck up the ice," Josh said.

"Thank you, dear, for the translation," Donna said, and everyone laughed. Donna patted Josh on the hand, and he clutched hers in his. He looked like he needed time to process and catch up. They couldn't wait for him, though. If he got left behind, that was just how it had to be.

"That sounds sensible to me," Steigler said. "Albright, get this media avail set up. Call the right people now, yourself, while the staff organizes it. We need a time that won't disrupt the game."

"All right," Steigler said after Milchuk had made a little speech about not making the players answer questions on this topic and disrupting game preparation. "We're done here. Albright, make sure your people look after the McCallums while they wait. Tony, you and me are going to talk Cubs business."

Tony did what he was told and sat in Steigler's office and gave him his best off the cuff thoughts on the three or four guys that the Lions might be able to use down the stretch to the playoffs.

"This kid, this Swede. I know we traded for him, I signed off on that, but what the hell are we doing there?"

"Jonas?" Tony said. "He's not a Swede, by the way. He's more Russian than anything else. Played enough hockey in Sweden that he picked up all the usual Swedish skills too, but maybe that's what's wrong with him. He learned two different systems as a kid, maybe more like three."

"All the same to me, he's a Euro. Is he ever going to make the NHL?"

Tony rubbed his face and sighed. "How the hell do I know, Steegs? I'm not a scout, I'm not going to give you a sales pitch on the guy. He's got a hard head. Can't tell if that's stupid or just stubborn. But there is a lot of skill there. Cally watched his game tape with me, and he said the kid doesn't know where to go with sometimes, so he just skates somewhere fast. I think he's right."

"Cally said that?"

"Yeah, he says shit all the time where it comes out of his mouth and then he's as shocked as anyone else when he hears it. Didn't know he knew it."

"And he's physically fine?"

"Yup."

"I'm not asking. I assume a skating test took place that I and the guys who deal with the insurance don't need to know about. But would he know where to go on the ice?"

"No idea."

"Come on, Tony."

"No, seriously, Steegs, I have no idea. Ask me in a week when we've had time to see about him passing his driving test. He just learned yesterday that he knows how to scramble eggs."

Steigler sat back and covered his face with both hands, blew out a breath. "Why the hell aren't you freaking out, Tony?"

"No time. And if I lose my cool, I'll lose it in the wrong direction."

"You turned into an iceman your last few years in the game."

"Yeah, well. It was that or beat some asshole to a pulp and end up in jail."

Steigler looked at him for a long time, and Tony looked back. The game hired lifers for jobs in the front office all the time. They were of a type, usually — guys like Steigler or Graves, most of them Canadians from small towns who'd barely finished high school or Americans who'd been shitty enough at hockey to finish their college degrees. Most of them had been shitty hockey players in the NHL who had made a lot of friends. There were a few former stars, a very few. And the reason for that more than anything else was money. Tony had a ton of it. He'd been very busy raising a family and pretending to be a straight guy when he'd been young enough to blow it all on hookers and blackmail money. He'd put it into low-risk investments instead.

All that money meant Steigler couldn't push him around. Not enough to feel like he was top dog in the kennel full of dogs who'd all grown up thinking that's how you got ahead. He'd never been very sure if Steigler wanted to push him around. Mostly Steigler dealt with Joe, fed him the organizational excuses for filling the Cubs with shit players that all added up to 'can't be bothered' and 'don't want to spend the money'. Mostly Tony dealt with Joe from the other side.

"We aren't prepared for a situation like this," Steigler said, seriously.

"Which part of it?" Tony asked, honestly not sure if he was watching Steigler assembling the arguments in his own head for firing Albright or if there was something else on his mind.

"Any part of it. I'm going to talk to Albright once he's got this deal done tomorrow. But I don't see Koss getting out in front on the medical side, and we're sitting here wasting time talking about players we don't have."

Tony rubbed his chin and looked at Steigler, narrowed his eyes. He should keep his mouth shut. He should tell Joe to drop a word in his ear instead of jumping in, but Tony was a competitor still, in the way he'd always been, which wasn't by barking louder than the other dogs and pushing guys around. He'd always wanted to win by being the best. "Kevin Nickerson," he said.

"Who the hell is that?"

"High second round pick of the Stingrays. Doesn't fit their team identity. He's 22, stuck in the minors on a really shitty team, and he is the best all-around forward in the minors. He's not tops on the scoring list, but he's the best guy I've seen on another team. Might be some guy out west I don't know about, but I don't think so."

"What do you mean doesn't fit?" Steigler asked.

"He's not an asshole. He's not made of wet slush either, but he's too busy playing hockey to worry about how hard he hits all the time."

"The Rays like their guys a certain way," Steigler said. "My scouts have mentioned him, but they said he doesn't score."

"He ends up in the zone all by himself. He's got a behind the net move he uses to wait for the rest of his shit team to catch up, but usually they don't."

"I'll look at some tape," Steigler said. "That all you got?"

"Off the top of my head. I told you I'm not a scout, I'm there to watch our guys, Steegs."

"Yeah, okay. Okay. I'll talk to Joe today too. Thanks, Tony."

Tony took his cue and left, wandering the familiar hallways like he belonged. He found a few old friends and got a little gossip. Everyone had something to say about Albright being on the outs with Graves. And that was a surprise, Tony had thought it was Steigler that was fed up with him. 

He wound his way back to the boardroom and found Doctor Koss deep in consultation with Cally's parents. "Tony," Donna said, "the doctor wants Sean to have a physical."

"Yeah, he'll need that before they'll let him train or anything. When?"

Koss said, "We can do it tomorrow but ― "

"No," Tony said. "Definitely not. Make it Monday when the team is gone. He can come in, see you, see Mickey, the whole deal. Maybe skate. He said the hospital wanted another blood test. Call them up and tell them you'll do it. This hasn't been coordinated from your end at all, and it should be. He's your patient."

"I am aware of that," Koss said stiffly.

"But email Cally on all that. He keeps track of his own schedule, I'm just going by memory."

"I can do that."

"Or you could just talk to him when he's done with the guys. Another thing, what have you guys got on staff here for mental health issues."

"What do you mean?"

Tony wanted to sigh. Koss would know what he meant if he'd been keeping up on Cally's case. "Talk to Cally's doctors in Bridgeport. They set up a program of occupational therapy, but they also had him with a regular sort of therapist. The guy is, uh, not good. Cally fired him. He wants someone who he can discuss things with."

"He has his family," Josh said.

Tony turned and looked at him, and noted the set to his jaw. "He wants to talk about things he doesn't understand with someone neutral," Tony said. "It's hard not to, I don't know, tell him what to think, I guess. So we want a therapist who is good at not doing that."

"He needs a specialist," Koss said, thoughtfully.

"Yeah, we don't know how to find one."

"I'll ask around. And I'll email him on that too."

Koss left, and Tony sat and wished he were home with Cally. The next day was going to be even worse.

"What did Mr Steigler want?" Donna asked him.

"Oh, nothing. Nothing about Cally. We were talking player personnel. Roster stuff. Speaking of, I need to check my phone." He filled the silence answering his messages. He laboriously typed out a long note to Joe about what he'd told Steigler, and then he could either play a game or talk to Cally's parents. 

Donny Albright saved him. He came in, burst in the door, shouting into his phone in a way that seemed staged to Tony, and plunked down at the head of the table. Tony kept poking at his phone like he couldn't see him. Donna let out an audible sigh that almost made him break character and laugh.

"Okay, folks," Albright said, putting down his phone. "We have the schedule. I printed it off." Albright set a stack of paper in front of him so someone would have to get up and get it to share it around. Tony glanced over at Donna and saw her cross her arms over her chest and glare. Lawyers, he remembered. She worked with lawyers.

Albright started reading off the paper. "We'll convene at nine. That's early, but to be honest, these reporters will be hanging around waiting, so we need to get in early. The actual press conference will be at eleven, which lets anyone who is at morning skate like Milchuk have time to get there.

"Mr Albright," Donna said crisply. "Where is there?"

"The arena downtown. It's all on the schedule."

Donna looked at Albright, looked at the pile of papers, and then looked up at him with one eyebrow raised. "Can you not keep a secretary, Mr Albright?" she said sweetly, like she had all the sympathy in the world for him.

"Oh, sorry, yeah, my girl isn't the most reliable." He stood up with a stupid smirk on his face, and for a brief moment Tony was afraid he was going to tell some horrible off-colour joke about how it was wonderful that she dropped things a lot or something. He'd finally know if Cally got his right cross from his mom like he'd begun to suspect. Albright woke up to where he was in time and passed the papers around the table to everyone.

"So, by 'convene', Mr Albright, you mean here in this office?" Donna said after she had examined the paper.

"Yeah, yeah. We're bringing Koss, Milchuk wants to be there. Steigler. And Tony, you're not on camera, right?"

"Of course not," Tony said. "I'd rather not even be seen. Jonesy will want to go. Maybe some of the other guys. The leadership group."

"No, we don't want that," Albright said.

"Great. Can I watch when you tell those guys that you're making their boy do this alone?"

Josh actually smirked a little behind his paper. Then he slapped it down and sat up and squared his shoulders, "Albright, I'm more of a hockey guy than I ever was a suit and tie sort, even if I've worked for years in an office like this. Whatever the hell you're playing at, if this is some fucking power play between you and whoever the hell you're fighting with, do not think you can use my son as a pawn in it. First off, he's too damn smart to let you. Second, Tony ain't gonna let you. And third, I ain't gonna let you."

"Look, I don't know what ―"

"No, you don't," Tony barked. "Ask Jonesy who wants to go. Add them to your list. I assume you're using the bus for this?"

"You do not get to tell me what to do in my job anymore, Grenier."

"Yeah, I do," Tony said and grinned at him.

Tony was under a lot of stress, but he wasn't so damn out of it that he hadn't figured that Steigler was eyeing him up for a job of some kind. He could smell it. And the thing he had experience in other than what he was doing for Joe was PR. Steigler's thinking had to be long-term. If Cally was good to play again, there was no room for Tony on the team. But what if he wasn't? Steigler was a coldhearted bastard, and he knew the team was stagnating from the top down. If he wanted to save his own job, he might start firing some deadwood. But all of that was a problem for the future. Tony couldn't look that far ahead.

He had Donny to school up, but he knew Steigler would back him on it if he did. "I do get to tell you, Albright, because for this adventure, I'm family. And I'm telling you to sort this out because I don't want Cally to have to insist. I don't want Jonesy, who has to work with you all the time, to have to insist. You already hate me, Donny, so what's a little more? Ask Mr Jones nicely how many guys want to go."

Tony looked down at the schedule and frowned as he read it. They were kidding themselves if they thought the Q and A would take only half an hour.

"We have a prepared statement for Mr McCallum to read." Albright said, tightly.

"Good luck with that," Tony said, not looking up.

Albright sat back and huffed out an irritated sigh. "Fine. Fine. I'll go change this again. Maybe if you people had made your demands up front ―"

"Donny," Tony barked out, standing up and moving to cut him off before he could run out the door. "Mrs McCallum is not 'you people'. Mr McCallum is not 'you people', and Cally is a goddamn member of this team who has given you more fucking dollars in bonuses with his goddamn willingness to smile at the fucking camera for you than you have any right to have. So don't forget who it is you bark for around here. It ain't me, you dumb shit, it's him."

"Jesus," Tony said, when Albright had slammed out the door. He sank back in his chair. "Jesus, that was not smooth."

"Sometimes smooth just makes people think you're soft," Donna said.

"Lawyers, right. You ever get sick of men strutting around waving their, um ―"

"Dicks around?" she finished for him. "Every day. I'm thinking of finding a firm run by women."

Josh looked up, confused by the turn in the conversation.

"Yeah. I thought about that. I'm not bullshitting either. I wondered if just going and buying a women's hockey team might make for a quiet life. No one would ever think I was looking at anyone funny, either."

"What stopped you?" Donna asked curiously.

"They're all run by the same guys we have here. And there's no money in it."

"You need the money?" Josh asked incredulously.

"Course not. I just like knowing I'm still worth top dollar. Even if the scale has changed. You get used to it, seeing your name on the top of the lists. It's hard to go back to the bottom."

The door burst open again, and Cally came in looking too many things to catalogue in a glance. He was flanked by Sergei Nikishin and Alex Gaborov. "I speak Russian," Cally announced with a giant grin.

"No," Alex said, frowning. "No you know Russian bad words. We taught you one night over one year since. But you still know."

"Amazing," Sergei added. "We can teach you more. See if you remember as good."

"Jonesy put them in charge of me," Cally said, taking a chair. His bodyguards hung around the door like they were the bouncers in the kind of club you went to on road trips to Brooklyn if you were brave.

"Read the schedule, Cally," Tony said. "Albright is going to give you some prepared words."

"Albright has shit where his brains go," Cally said casually, only the word shit was in Russian, a word even Tony knew.

"This looks okay, but what do I know?"

Sergei snatched up the paper and slowly read it. "Oh, yes, half an hour, they are crazy. No matter. Once thing like this start, is press who really in charge. Unless you just leave ― and you should not, it looks bad ― you sit and you answer until they run out of things to ask four different ways."

Cally nodded. "I know what I want to say. We talked about it, me and the guys who are good at it. Jonesy told them to help me out, and it made me feel better about all of this. The team might think I should go for the sob story, but I can't lie. I want to tell people that I'm okay, that I will always be okay. Just different."

"Do what Russians do," Alex said. "Take paper from Albright and nod and say, yes I will say, and then forget to bring paper. Say what you like."

"He can't say he can't read it like we do," Sergei said, "but no one will doubt about man with no memory forgetting a thing." He waved the paper. "The rest is okay. They using the bus to go from here? Mom is coming?" Sergei lifted his chin at Donna and gave her a smile like maybe she'd give him candy if he was a good boy.

"I won't be surprised by the language," Donna said.

"Oh, yes you will," Cally said with feeling and turned to Sergei. "You guys tell whoever comes to behave."

"All want to go. All team. Not sure will allow," Alex said.

"Maybe leave the rookies and the dumb ones behind," Tony said.

"Rookies yes. call-ups, they will not care. We will tell them to stay off bus too. Rest of guys, yes, will come. Also my agent text me rumour is out says this is about Cally. Russian reporter come from New York, so easy to get here. I think maybe bunch of guys come, you know, from all over."

"Doesn't take that long to fly from Toronto or Montreal."

"Ah, Canadians," Sergei said. "Like flies in summer, wherever there is hockey, there they are buzzing around." He looked up and found Josh and Donna glaring at him. Cally thought it was hilarious and started laughing. Stress made it sound a little manic.

"What are we waiting on?" Tony asked.

Cally said, "Jonesy wants a clear run at Albright to make sure this is sorted out how he wants. And Koss said he was busy and to come back in half an hour."

"Fuck him, go see Mickey."

"Oh, yeah. Come on guys, show me the gym," Cally commanded and started to walk out, but he turned back and manoeuvred around the table to meet Donna who was already standing up to hug him. "It's going to be fine now. I have the guys. Everything will work out," he told her. He reversed around the table and tipped a wink at Tony on the way out. He was overacting a bit, but he was mostly okay, Tony would have bet.

"He fakes it real good," Josh said.

"Yeah," Tony said.

"Good thing."

"Yeah."

Tony got a call from Joe, so he escaped to an empty office to take it. It was weird being in the Lions offices again, getting into the same bullshit power games with the same guys.

Eventually, Cally found him, slipped inside, and sat in the too-small chair to wait for him to finish talking about Cubs business.

"You look like you're doing okay," Tony told him when Joe let him go.

"I want to go home."

"Yup. Come on. Go get your mom and dad, and we'll get the hell out of here. Anything we need, we can sort out some other day."

"Someone took our coats."

"Yeah, I know where those will be, meet me by the door."

They all shrugged into their coats fast and hustled to the car in the cold air. Spring would come, bringing playoffs and green grass on the golf course, but it wasn't hurrying.

The McCallum family piled in his car and Tony drove them home again.


	11. Chapter 11

Cally looked out the window on the drive home, phone in his pocket. His parents were quiet, and Tony's car had the air of the bus after a game when you were too tired to care if you'd won or lost.

Into that silence, Josh burst out with,"What the hell kind of way is that to run a team?"

Tony almost laughed, but he took the question seriously and said, "People get used to each other, and they start competing with each other instead of remembering why they're there. Bunch of old hockey players, all of them, makes it worse."

"Is your office like that?" Josh demanded.

"Sometimes. Me and Joe don't care for the coach the Lions gifted us, but we work with him. We try hard to make sure everyone's rowing the boat in the same direction. Doesn't always work."

Josh had nothing else to say and the quiet filled the car for the rest of the drive.

They pulled into the garage, and Donna made noises about making everyone dinner. Cally burst out into a sunny smile and told them both they should definitely stay.

Tony smelled a rat. He opened the door to the house and smelled something else. "Holy hell, what is that cooking? _Who_ is that cooking?"

"Come in and see," Cally said, looking almost shy.

They all went in and followed their noses to an empty kitchen. There was one of the pies Cally and Donna had made cooling on a rack, and in the oven, Tony bent and peered in, was something in a large baking pan.

Pat sauntered in and opened the refrigerator which had been his rote behaviour since he was about seven. He pulled out a bowl of carrot sticks and methodically chewed one, which had been his behaviour only recently. Tony tried to stare him down. "It's not ready yet," Pat said.

Tony introduced his youngest to Cally's parents and then gave in and asked. "What is it?"

Pat shrugged. "Um, I'm not all that sure. I stopped really paying attention once I found the right thing and just put my focus on the important part."

"Following the instructions," Cally said with confidence.

"The pie, dude, the pie," Pat told Cally. He looked around at the number of people and sighed. "Should have made two. But I didn't know if that changed the times you told me or not."

"You did great, Patty," Cally said. "Really great. When is it ready?"

"About half an hour or so. Depends, right, like Cally said?"

"It's a chicken casserole," Donna explained. "I used to make it every weekend and put one in the freezer for emergencies."

Pat nodded at that information. "I have stuff to do, so ―"

"Patty," Tony said, exasperated that the little fool just thought he could walk off without hearing how much Tony loved him.

"Yeah?"

"You're an awesome kid, Patty, thanks for this. It was perfect."

"All I did was do as I'm told," Pat said, as he left the kitchen. "You know that's one of my strengths, it was even on my report card."

"One time," Tony called after his laughing son. "One time, and you were ten!"

"I did okay?" Cally said, bottom lip between his teeth. "I thought if I gave him a job that he'd feel like he could do it. And he did good. That's right isn't it?"

"It's perfect, babe," Tony told him. "You're perfect. And this is a perfect way to end this day."

Cally nodded, and looked thoughtful, a little strained. "Good. Um, so everyone, I need to just go sit in my office for a little while. Is that okay?"

"Sure, Cally, go decompress," Tony said, indulgently.

"I think I'll set the table for dinner," Donna said, "and then I'd like to talk to Eileen?"

"The guest room is at the end of the hall if you want privacy," Tony said gesturing up the stairs.

"Come and tell me what the fuck is going on on that team," Josh demanded.

"Sure, yeah. I gotta check my phone, see what Andy's doing." Tony did that, got out the whisky and set it on the coffee table in front of Josh. There was golf on the television.

He told Josh a sanitized version of the team politics and left out any mention of his speculation that Steigler had his eye on him.

"Where does this leave us? Are they going to cause Sean trouble over his future? Money, whatever?"

"Hard to say. The thing is, these guys love you when you're producing, and as soon as you aren't, it depends on who you are. There's good former players that were always on the inside track with the team, the coaches, the management, right? And then there's guys like Cally who have baggage."

"They like you."

"I'm a different type of guy from Cally."

"Yeah. Yeah, you are. Especially now. I don't fucking know anymore. Does it matter what he acts like? If he never plays again, what the fuck difference does it make?" Josh sounded almost augmentative, but he looked like he had gone ten rounds and lost.

"I got no crystal ball," Tony said. "I'll tell you what I do know because it happened to me and a lot of other guys. If they still owe you big money when you can't produce good enough, you become a problem they want to solve. But what if you are good enough for somewhere else? You're stuck. You either give up millions and take the risk you can still play in Europe or whatever, or you sit and cash the cheques."

"Are you saying you could have played more?"

"Yeah, sure. I even had offers. And I had a couple of kids who were worth me sitting on my ass and cashing the cheques so I could raise them up right. Be there. All of that."

"And Cally makes a lot of money."

Tony nodded. He almost left it at that, but he couldn't help himself. "Almost as much as I was pulling at the end." He liked being top of the list. He wouldn't apologize for that. He heard the garage door, so he got up and turned and waited. Josh was busy thinking, and Donna had vanished.

"Dad!" Andy said when he came in, letting his luggage pile drop. It was a lot of stuff.

"Andy, what the hell?"

"Oh, this is just my equipment, practice stuff. I need to dump it in the basement until summer hockey. You're Mr McCallum," Andy said, moving over to shake hands.

"Donna's here too," Tony said, "and Cally is not talking to anyone for a bit. Chilling."

Andy nodded. "Yeah, he texted me this afternoon. What is that smell?"

"Patty cooked dinner," Tony said, deadpan, to watch Andy roll his eyes.

"I'll put my stuff upstairs and then stow all the rest of that." He waved at the pile and took off.

Eventually, Donna came back downstairs and found Josh in silent contemplation of some basketball highlights while Tony worked his phone and ignored him. "Dinner smells like it was done ten minutes ago," she said.

"Shit," Tony said, jumping up. He followed Donna into the kitchen and watched her examine the casserole.

"We'll just avoid this one edge and it will be fine," she said.

It was excellent, and Tony enthused about it to try to defuse the weird tension at the table. His kids were behaving, Cally was quiet. It was unsettling.

"Mom gave me the recipe, but I think it might be outside my pay grade to make it by myself," Cally said with a happy look at his mother. "I'll have to work up to it."

"You should be working out and practising, not cooking," Josh announced.

"I like cooking," Cally said, shrugging. "I like hanging out with Mom too."

"Did Koss give you a time for the physical yet?" Josh said, persistent.

"Monday. I got a whole agenda of stuff starting early. Mickey was cool, so I'm looking forward to gym time."

"I'll be at work," Tony said.

"I can take him in the morning," Andy said. "Then someone will have to come get him when he's done."

"I can drive him," Josh said.

"Okay," Cally said. "All sorted. Let Andy take me in, and then you guys don't have to get up so early."

"Josh," Donna said, "honey, the firm is not expecting me to be gone this long."

"We can't leave," Josh said, too loud, too tense.

"You can," Cally said, setting his fork down, and fixing Josh with a hard look. "I want you here. Both of you. I'd love you to stay. But you have jobs and lives, and Eileen is all alone. She needs Mom too, so if you have to go, you can. I am fine here."

"You can't even drive a car!" Josh said.

"So? After tomorrow, I'll hire a car service. I talked to a nice lady in the Lions office that said they get someone for guys if they come from Europe and don't have the right papers. I can do that, and then I'll be in charge of my own schedule."

"You shouldn't have to sort this out yourself, though, Sean," Donna said.

"I like it. It feels good, reassuring I guess, that I can do stuff. Figure it out. It's hard to read stuff on my phone, though. I need a computer like Tony's."

"Get a tablet," Pat said.

"How?"

"Buy it?"

"But, in a store or whatever? I'd have to wait for Monday and I don't know where to go."

"Dude, you know all sorts of stuff, and you don't know Amazon?"

"No?" Cally said. "That's wait — that's like buying online?"

"Yeah," Pat said. "You need a credit card and an account on the site, and I bet you have one."

"I bet he has a lot of accounts," Andy said.

"Yeah and no passwords anymore," Pat supplied.

"Old guy, though, he might have a file called passwords right on his phone, and when you open it, the only word in there is 'password'."

"Not that old," Pat said, frowning and ignoring Andy still laughing at his own joke. "We should help him with all that. Dad can't."

"No kidding," Andy said. "Remember the great virus hunt of 2014?" Pat burst out laughing at that, and Andy joined in.

"Tony," Cally said slowly. "Do you have any idea what they're saying?"

"Not a one."

"Huh." Cally took a sip of his water and then ripped off a string of Russian, grin growing wider as he went.

The sharing out of the pie was carried out by Pat and Andy with mathematical precision and enough arguing to make Donna a little teary eyed with nostalgia for her own kids who had grown past that stage.

"So I have a bunch of credit cards," Cally said to Andy, when his pie was half gone. He was thumbing through the contents of his wallet. "But why does one have another name on it?"

"I don't know? Dad?"

"What's the name?"

"Gordie Hough?"

Tony grinned at him. "Spelled Hough? Yeah, it's really pronounced Huff. It's a joke, babe, your manager got it for you years ago to use for anything you didn't want attached to your name. He had a next door neighbour with that name, slipped him some cash to fill out the application."

"That's illegal," Andy said primly.

"Yeah," Tony shrugged. "Beats having your business on the front page."

"I think it's expired," Cally said.

"We'll show you how to not get hacked, or end up on Deadspin," Andy said. "And help you pick out a tablet or a laptop."

"You guys are awesome," Cally told them.

Tony watched them sit up straighter and glow a little under their cool poses. He turned his attention to Cally, who was eating his pie and looking pleased with his life, not sure his man had ever shown such easy and simple love for his kids before.

Cally took both boys into his office after dinner was done and there was a lot of laughter and loud voices. That left Tony with the McCallums, who didn't seem to want to go to their hotel.

"I'm really nervous about this press thing tomorrow," Donna said.

Tony tried to explain exactly how it all worked and gave her the behind the scenes view. "I think the guys, the players, will want to sit out in the crowd of reporters. It'll look a little intimidating to the press, and it's meant to be. For you and Josh, you want to stand back so Cally can see you, but you're not on camera or very visible from the crowd. To be honest, if you come out enough so the camera gets a shot of you being supportive, they might be satisfied with that and leave you alone after."

"And you?"

"Me? I know that old barn like the back of my hand, I'll be invisible." There would be some of the team who would go on the bus but would avoid the press and just hang around in the hallways. He could mix in with them. Or he could find an office and work his phone. "Frank Tillburg is coming in, and he should have Cally's publicist in tow. If you need anything, make them make it happen. They'll handle the team and the press for you."

"And then?" Josh asked.

"And then we see how it lands. We might need to do a one-on-one interview. But, I'm with Donna, I'm not pushing Cally to do anything he's not comfortable with. Monday's physical and work with the trainers is more important anyway. And he's got the grind of therapy visits still and all the shit we've put off because we're too busy doing other things."

Josh didn't answer, just turned back to the television and gave it the thousand-yard stare.

Eventually, they left. Cally asked his mom to tell Eileen he was too stressed to call her, and they hugged hard at the door. Josh looked around like he wasn't sure where he was and walked out into the cold like he hadn't noticed he hadn't put his coat on.

"It was weird today," Cally said in the dark, once they'd escaped to bed. They were almost nose to nose, how Cally had wanted it, and Tony closed his eyes and wrapped his arm around Cally's waist and just listened. "So many people who all know me, and it was hard to remember who was who even. Names and nicknames. It's all a mess. I taught them the rule. And I learned some stuff, I guess. They reminded me of the boys when they're being funny or like they think they're big shots. But they just never stop."

"Dick swinging," Tony said.

"Yeah. Is that what Dad doesn't like about me? That I don't do that?"

"You can do that just fine if you have to. It was never a thing you went looking for. West-coast laid-back type is how you seemed to me."

"You get all bossy, but it's not the same. You're forceful, not just trying to get looked at or be loud."

"I just want to get my way, not get props for it," Tony said.

"Yeah," Cally said archly.

Tony laughed and snuggled in closer. "You like getting your way too."

"Sure. It's better that way."

"Do you want to talk about tomorrow?"

"No," he said sharply. "I looked at that schedule, and there's a lot of sitting around time. I think what we'll do is I'll figure out what I want to say and write it down, and I'll just substitute that for what they give me."

"I'll type it up in the morning, and I know who to get to print it."

"And then one of the guys, older guy, losing his hair, name is Chugger for some damn reason?"

"Nick Sellick. And I think the reason likely involves beer and junior hockey."

"Oh, okay, yeah him, he said on the bus over, we meet at the back and the old guys like him ask me questions and I practice. We only have a few minutes, but he said it will work."

"Sounds good. The important thing is to keep your cool. Like Miranda was showing you. Even keel, no big outbursts, and then what you say matters, not how you say it."

"Okay."

"And one thing, babe, it's important. You are not responsible for how other people feel. You make me happy because of who you are, not things you say or don't say, okay?"

"Are you? Happy?" Cally asked.

"Well, babe, this is a hell of a lot of stress right now, but yeah. I have you and the boys, and I am very happy with you guys."

"You like your job too, right?" 

"Sure. I do. I might want something more challenging some day. But I love Joe, and I like working with him."

"I don't know how that feels. I guess playing made me feel that, but I don't know. It's hard to imagine."

"Cally, that's looking too far down the road. Think about how it felt to skate."

"Yeah! Oh, yeah! As soon as this physical is done, can I do that every day?"

"Close enough."

"Is it okay if I just sleep now?" Cally said softly.

"Everything you do is okay, babe."

They had barely enough time the next morning for Cally to give him an outline of what he wanted to say and for Tony to type it up before the McCallums were due to show up. The boys sat silently while they hashed it out at the breakfast table, Andy speaking up to correct a bit of phrasing here or there and nothing more. When they were done, Tony looked it over and said, "You're sure? This is not the route the team wants to go."

"They want a tragedy to cry over. Poor Sean McCallum, the brain-damaged victim. And I think I want everyone to see me alive and healthy, and maybe in a couple of weeks, I'll have someone film me working out and skating."

Tony looked at him, and frowned. "Why?"

"Because maybe the team wants me to go to Vancouver and go live in my parents' house and be a baby again, too."

"You've been talking to Axworthy?"

"Some, yeah. But just listening, too. To what the guys said, to how surprised everyone is I look fine. To Dad and how he expects me to be doing nothing but training, and maybe I should make it look like that's true. I want to workout and skate anyway."

"Keep your options open?"

"That's what Axworthy said."

"Makes sense. Close no doors until you're sure. Now go put on the happy, alive clothes you want to wear, and time it so your parents don't have time to argue about it forever."

"You guys are fine here today?" Tony asked the boys once Cally had run off with an ominous gleam in his eye.

"Andy's taking me to my game and then he's making me help bring some more of his hockey junk here," Pat said.

"I love you guys."

"Dad," Andy said, pained. "Fine, you keep saying that. You can't make us join your new emotionally mature world."

Tony grinned at him. "I bet I can."

"Bet you can't."

Tony waited him out.

"How much?" Andy asked cautiously.

"What actual definition are you guys using for mature, here?" Pat asked.

"Don't muddy the waters, Patty," Tony said. "A hundred," hd said to Andy.

Andy eyed him with a long, long look and then leaned forward, and shook on it. Tony grinned like a shark. This was going to be so much fun.

"Holy Christ," Andy said, and Tony whirled around.

Cally was in the hallway looking nervous and confident at the same time. His suit was electric blue, not the merely bright blue he'd worn before, but a deep marine colour that was also alive with light. He'd put a pinkish-purple shirt with it that had never been bought for that suit, but it worked, in a way. The tie was a purple, shaded with wine and gold, the Lions colours. He looked enormous and bright and alive, and his hair was absurdly pink next to all that purple. Likely why Tony had never seen that shirt before.

"Cally! That is quite the look."

"I like it. I'm wearing it," he said in warning, and Tony put his hands up to show he wasn't arguing. The effect was incredible. Cally looked alive and vibrant and not at all like a tragedy or a sick man. He looked like he was about to play game seven of the finals where he planned to dominate the ice. And maybe for his future, this day was that level of important.

The doorbell went, and Cally grinned and strode off, so Tony followed him. Cally yanked the door open and immediately said, "We're almost ready to go," to his parents. "Come on, Tony, coat." Cally opened the closet and got out the black topcoat which did not tone anything down. He handed Tony his. "I have to wear dress shoes, though right?" Cally asked.

"Yes, Sean," Donna said. "Is there any point in arguing about this?"

"Nope," Cally said, and grinned. "I want them to be wowed. I've thought about this a lot, and if I put on a dark suit and act like I'm going to Sean McCallum's funeral, that's what it will be."

"That's a horrible thing to say," Josh said, affronted.

"Yeah, it is. But it's what some of them want. My agent says he's already had one talk with Graves about contingency plans that adds up to me taking early retirement so they save money."

"That's outrageous," Josh said, new target for his ire.

"Yeah, well. I might want that, Dad. I don't know. But when you don't know where to go with the puck, just picking a spot and going there fast can get you in trouble. Sometimes you back up and think again."

Josh rubbed his face and shrugged. He looked defeated by the bright blue suit and everything that Cally was, and the hockey analogy he couldn't argue with, not when he'd been a defenceman who'd made that play a thousand times.

"I love you guys," Cally said, intently, like this _was_ his game seven speech. "I need you. I need you to be there where I can see you."

"Perhaps I should have worn something blue," Donna said, and Cally let out a peal of laughter.

"Next time," he said, "I'll buy you something amazing now that I know how to do that."

She was wearing a sober and simple suit, not too different from Josh's, and it did look like they were dressed for a funeral. Cally was right about how people were acting. Tony had put on something bland with a tie in the Cubs colours just to remind everyone who he worked for, but he looked boring, not like he was in mourning.

Tony loaded them up in his car again and drove to New Haven. There was already chaos in progress in the parking lot, getting the bus loaded. Tony ducked inside and found Janice in PR and handed over his jump drive. She printed his pages, handed him a leather folder to tuck them into, and then handed him the prepared statement which he slid inside on top.

Everyone else was on the bus when he went back outside. He handed off the folder to Sergei to take to Cally in the back, and then he sat in the seat at the front behind Steigler and Graves.

Josh and Donna were in the care of one of the team's on-air hosts that did the interviews for the website. She was someone new since Tony's day; they changed them up about every couple of years, so they stayed young and blond and couldn't end up dating a player for very long. No one had ever wanted to hear Tony's opinions on how the endless parade of rookies left them with no one who ever knew the job.

The back of the bus sounded more subdued than he'd expected, but usually Steigler and Graves weren't at the front.

"Tony," Steigler said, as they pulled into the familiar lot downtown and slowly drove around to the back of the building. "I've got an office set up with a TV. You come sit with us."

"Sure," Tony said, not looking around to see who was upset at the notice he was getting. The Lions weren't his team. Their office politics weren't his problem anymore.

At the downtown arena, the players left the bus first, Cally in the centre of a phalanx that included his Russians and two other guys he'd been tight with in the past. They were all the young guys, the ones who were closer to Andy's age, not even as old as Cally. They were the players who could keep up with Cally on the ice and didn't care who he went home to.

Tony followed Steigler at an easy walk, hands in his coat pockets. They turned left as the players went straight ahead, and Tony knew where they were going, the visiting coach's office. It wasn't very big, but it was private and away from where the team would be hanging out. Steigler had Graves with him, and they were talking quietly, so Tony dawdled to give them privacy. Milchuk was there too, but it was Graves that turned around and went back the way they'd come, leaving just the three of them to fill the small room.

A tech had the television set up and he was testing the picture, making sure they had the raw feed their own camera was shooting. "If something goes wrong," the tech said, looking around, and landing on Tony to speak to. "Channel 357 has it as well, but there will be commentary there."

"Thanks," Tony said and accepted the remote from the guy. How the hell he'd been promoted to Steigler's dogsbody, he wasn't sure. He wasn't sure it was a promotion either. Tony folded his coat over the back of a chair and sat down.

"I want to keep this conversation private," Steigler said. He'd taken the seat behind the desk, leaving Milchuk with the other visitor's chair beside Tony. "I told Milchuk about what you said about this kid, Nickerson. We had the boys put together a little video, not a lot, but we watched it and we like what we see."

"Rough around the edges," Milchuk said.

"If we get him, and we're thinking of not waiting for the deadline, even though it's only a week and a half away, but the Rays can't develop shit, so I don't want to leave him there. We're inches away from pulling the trigger on this. We want this guy to be the focus of your attention, Tony. And Craig, of course, but we want him ready to at least be on call for the playoffs."

"Joe isn't here," Tony said, flatly. He'd brought gum, in case he got nervous, so he got it out and fussed with it.

"I want a special commitment out of you, Tony," Steigler said, "and I know the timing here is shit, but we need all hands on deck."

Tony nodded, mimicking Cally's move. He wasn't Steigler's hand to call on, not really. The Cubs were not owned by the Lions. Not outright. The Lions owners, Steigler's bosses, were only a minority shareholder. Joe's bosses included Steigler's bosses in their number, but the Lions didn't have the right to give Tony instructions like Steigler was doing.

The TV scene changed from a static view of a table and a microphone in an empty end of the room to one of crowds of people jostling around. Tony watched the press and about half of the Lions roster fill in the seats. The media had their pecking order. The big names were mostly up front, but a couple of guys who might want to make something out of a story on Cally were farther back, lurking on the margins.

The players took some of the first two rows of seats, but the Russians hung around standing up against the wall near the front, looking like muscle. Alex was a couple of inches shorter than Tony and all offence on the ice. He danced the puck in the net. Sergei was a tougher customer, but not by much. And yet, they looked intimidating. They were joined by the closest thing the Lions had to pure muscle, their last resort defender and all around hell of a guy, Luka Smid. He was a Czech, and Tony remembered when the Czechs and the Russians would fight each other bloody over any slight. Now they were hanging out like brothers to support a man they all knew was gay.

The world changed around you so fast, you could miss it if you took your eye off it.

Tony looked around the room he was in. Milchuk was over 60, and Steigler was around the same age. Graves had never come back. These guys were the two really running the team. And they were both smart men who knew their generation was fading away out of the game.

Tony turned back to the scene on the television. Koss came and sat at the table, glanced up and then busied himself with notes. Albright appeared and said a few words. No one asked Tony to turn the sound up to hear him, so he didn't.

When Cally's parents appeared at the edge of the view, Tony hit the volume. The crowd was producing a muttered, masculine growl of noise, but when Cally appeared, there was total silence. He stood and surveyed the crowd, nodded once and sat, popping the button on his suit jacket as he did. He set the folder on the table. Opened it. Picked up the top sheet of paper and slid it to the bottom of the pile.

Steigler turned and stared at Tony, but Tony had no time for him.

The crowd was muttering a little, the volume growing, and then Cally looked up and said, "Hi!" He smiled, softly, not his look when he found something hilarious, more of an expression of sympathy. "Everyone. Thank you for coming today. This is Doctor Koss, and he's going to explain some technical stuff for you, but I want to tell you how I am first. The team told you all I was sick, but it's much more complicated than that. And I've had a little practice explaining this, so I'll try to do a good job for you. A few weeks ago, I _was_ sick …"

He told the story the way he always did, but smoother, quicker. He looked at his notes a few times, but he went off script a little. The crowd was utterly silent until he said the words brain damage, and then there were gasps and exclamations.

When he said total memory loss, the silence somehow grew deeper. Cally looked up, looking around as if from face to face and smiled again. "This is hard for you. I know that. I'm learning how hard this is for people. I'm going to let the doctor explain a bit about this to you now, so you can take a minute to let it sink in. But I want to tell you some stuff after, so no shouting questions right away." He gave that instruction with mocking sternness and got a few laughs.

Koss delivered a prepared statement about the cause of Cally's brain damage and then subsided. He was boring and not very informative, but it did give the crowd a chance to think.

Cally spoke up again. "One thing I want to tell you after all of that is that I feel great. I don't have clearance to train yet, but I should soon. I'm not hurt. I'm not sick. I have all this energy, and I'm really ready to hit the gym. My team is here. The guys," Cally paused. "It means so much to me that they came here for me, to support me because I was very nervous about this today. I only met these guys for the first time yesterday."

Cally waited while the waves of response to his words rose and then fell through the crowd.

"That's how it is for me. And I'm already used to it, meeting new people who I used to know. It's hard sometimes, and maybe some of you, maybe I used to know you real well. Maybe we didn't get along. Here's one of the — perks isn't the right word — but I won't know if we don't like each other. We have a clean sheet of ice to skate on, all of us. In a second here, I'll let you ask me stuff, and you can ask Doctor Koss too. But I'm warning you right now, the answer is usually going to be 'I don't know'. And that's frustrating, but it's all I've got sometimes."

Cally took a sip of the water that was sitting on the table. He took a deep breath and smiled a little wry. "Okay, this is my first ever press conference, so try to go easy."

"Jesus," Steigler said.

The press side of the room had its stars too. And their biggest one stood up and said, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sean, my name is Bob McKenzie."

"I've heard of you," Cally said, pointing and smiling and then enjoying the laughter of the room. "I saw you on TV during a game."

"You watch games?"

Cally nodded. "Yup. Some. This whole thing takes up so much of my time. I have to stop and figure things out, or someone has to explain it to me. But hockey, it turned out, I mostly remember."

"I don't really understand how this works," Bob said.

"No, no. I get that. I've met you before haven't I?"

"Once or twice."

Cally nodded. "I don't remember that at all. But I know what a reporter is. I know what you do. I know what hockey is, a wrist shot, a goal, a penalty, a bad defensive decision," he flashed a grin, "but I don't remember making any." He got a laugh for that, and then he frowned slightly. "Did that help?"

"I'm not sure," Bob said and sat down.

The questions poured out of all corners of the room, repetition, everyone wanting the quote to go with their question, and Cally doggedly answered them all with a look of sympathy and good humour.

A Russian reporter stood up and asked if he would play in the KHL if he couldn't get back to NHL power. 

Cally raised his brows. "I don't know. I can't look so far ahead. I want to get on the ice, get in the gym. Ask me again in a while."

Many, many reporters asked about treatment, surgery, drugs. Cally referred them to Koss mostly, but eventually, he took a breath and leaned forward. "Everyone. I think you need to listen to this again. We will seek out another expert neurologist soon, but the doctors I've seen are good doctors. They don't see any treatment options. This is a very rare condition, and sometimes the brain will heal itself a little they say. That is all we can hope for right now. If that changes, I'll let you know."

"How is your family coping?" someone asked.

"I love them," Cally said. "All of them. And this is very hard to explain, but I have feelings, sometimes very strong feelings for people. My Mom came to visit me and just made me feel safe and loved and we made pie. I endorse pie as a coping strategy." Cally looked over at his parents and smiled, and the cameras turned, the murmurs started up. "But this is hard for them, like none of us can understand. I don't. I can't imagine it. So if you leave them in peace, I will appreciate that. I'm a big boy, I can take some attention. They're busy right now."

Someone asked about meeting the team so Cally told them all about Jonesy looking after him. "He's a good man, you should write that. And I found out a fun thing. Alex and Sergei had taught me some Russian. This is how it works. I know things, things I learned before, but I don't remember learning them. So I get surprises."

"What kind of Russian?" A voice called out.

"Oh, I can't say it on TV," Cally said to laughter.

"Will you play again?" a voice called out.

"Okay, you know the answer to that. You know what I'm going to say," Cally said sternly. "I haven't even been on the ice yet, I don't even know if I know how to practice. So you write down the answer you know I will say."

"Do you want to play again?" McKenzie asked in a nice easy tone, like he was just curious, and the room Tony was in grew tense.

"I want to know if I can," Cally said. "I want to know how it feels. I want to push myself to try. I was someone special, I think. And I understand a little bit about how hard I had to work to get there. I feel like if that is in me still, to work like that, then I can do anything. When I know, I'll tell you."

"How soon do you think you'll be back on the ice?" was the next question.

"Soon. I don't think there's anything physically wrong with me. I expect to pass the physical. So soon."

"How do you practice, if you don't know how to play?" was the follow-up.

"That's the hard part. I don't know that I don't know. I will have to see what happens when I'm on the ice. I need to talk to the coaching staff about this, and we'll work out a plan, but we are all stumbling around in the dark together."

The questions went on until the only thing left was for yet another person to ask him to guess how his future would turn out.

Cally answered him and then said, "I think we've covered all we can today, everyone. I'll talk to you again sometime. I can promise you that." Cally stood up and walked away, heading right for his mom and a big hug. Josh looked tight and stressed, and Tony felt like he needed a massage and then about half a bottle of booze to get his muscles to un-kink.

"He says all the right things," Steigler said. "And I guess we'll know when he knows, but I'm going to be honest here in this room with you guys. I'm going to plan like he's never coming back."

Tony nodded immediately. "You have to. I get that. It's nice to pretend we're all family, but we aren't. This is a business, and players know that. But Steegs, remember I am family. He is my family. He will always come first. And I'd like that to never get between us, but if it does …"

"Yeah, I hear you, Tony. I hear everything you aren't saying on not going over Joe's head too. I'll call him this afternoon, and maybe we'll set up a time to meet, all of us. You're available, right?"

"Yup," Tony said. "I'm on the job."

He ended up riding back to the office with Milchuk, who'd declined to ride the bus. He didn't have much to say, and Tony had nothing to get off of his chest. Whatever Steigler was thinking would come out in its own time.

Tony rounded up the McCallums and drove them home again.

The empty house was a lot less appealing than it had been when it smelled of cooking food.

"I need to be alone," Cally said and disappeared into the bedroom. He didn't come back out.

Tony looked at the McCallums and was about ready to just tell them to go to a movie or something when Donna declared they needed to go back to the hotel. She'd never sounded more like Cally than in that moment.

The silence wasn't loud enough to keep Tony from thinking, so he sat in his favourite chair and let himself consider his own future.


	12. Chapter 12

Tony got out the whisky, poured enough to smell nice but not get himself tipsy, and sat in the recliner with his phone on his knee willing himself to call Joe. He held the glass in his hand and tried to look a little farther down the road than he had been telling Cally to focus on.

Did he want a job with the big team? He liked being top dog. He liked being known. He liked being thought of as good. But if Cally could come back, that was years of playing, years before Tony could move to the Lions or some other top team without it being a conflict.

He shouldn't do anything, not even acknowledge that Steigler was eyeing him up until he knew where Cally stood. He had to respect him like he'd said to Josh, and let him find out if he had the game inside him still or not.

"And who the hell knows who will be running that team by then," he said to the silence. "Steigler could be gone this summer if they don't do well in the playoffs."

He thumbed his phone to life and called Joe.

"Tony, fuck, what a performance from Cally," Joe said, "How the hell are you?"

Tony heard him moving around and closing his office door. "I'm living. I watched that performance on the TV in a room with Steegs and Milchuk."

"Oh, really?" Joe said.

"Yeah. Steegs is planning things, Joey, but I'm not sure what. The thing you need to know is that I put a bug in his ear about that Nickerson kid in the Rays org. He's supposed to be calling you today and wants a meet, but I also killed his fantasy that Jonas is going to be NHL ready right away."

"Where was Graves in all of this?"

"Oh, funny you should ask that, Joe. Nowhere. Not yesterday, not today."

"He's either in trade talks with someone non-stop or he's out of the loop."

"Either one is possible from what I saw. Steegs said they're ready to pull the trigger on Nickerson. He and the scouts looked at video and said they all agreed with me on the guy."

"So other than that brilliant idea of yours, and it's your fault if he flops, don't forget, Tony, who are they after?"

"Anybody we got. I was afraid today they'd ask me if I wanted a comeback."

Joe burst out laughing and then cursed him out for surprising it out of him, a very Joe response. "Fuck, we'll have nothing left. They'll rotate all our best guys onto their fourth line looking for something to stick. Okay, we need up to date reports on the guys we can call up ourselves. You got anybody down with the Pirates whose brains you can pick?"

"Craig knows the coach really well. We should get Craig in your office, their coach on the phone and go down the list. I can pull all of my information on the guys we've had up before."

"Tomorrow?" Joe said.

Tony had the boys, who had a game, and having the boys should mean spending time with the boys. And Cally hadn't come out of the bedroom yet. "Yeah, sure," he said. "Set up a time, and I'll come in a bit before, but this isn't such an emergency we need the whole day, I don't think. Will Craig be back in time?"

"They're back tonight," Joe said. "So afternoon will work. I'll set this up and let you know. Tony, if you need time ―"

"No, Joe, I'm fine. We'll sort it out around here."

He finished the call with Joe and went back to what he'd been churning over in his mind.

Pat and Andy came back late from practice, loaded down with more bags of equipment than seemed reasonable.

"Andy, what the hell?" Tony said. "Are we renting the basement out to your team?"

"It's just my stuff and Loofer's," he said. "And there's old things we need to toss, so we'll hook up as soon as exams are done and sort it out."

"Cubs run an equipment drive in the summer," Tony said, half threat, half inducement.

"Awesome."

"Someone's cooking?" Pat asked on the next trip through for more junk.

"Don't think so," Tony said. "You guys order us something that can be reheated."

"Nope," Cally said, marching through the room. He had found the laundry that had been delivered because the green and orange shirt was back. "My mom showed me a recipe in the easy section of this website she likes, and we have the stuff. I'm going to make it."

"Okay."

"We can always get something else if it fails. That's what she said. Just like hockey practice, if it doesn't work, do it again."

"Okay."

"I'm fine, Tony," Cally said.

"Okay," Tony said, smirking at him. Cally stalked over from the doorway and kissed his smirking mouth and then stalked back into the kitchen like the Stingrays were waiting for him in there.

Tony went to find his laptop. He had an idea. He hid in the bedroom and got his little task done in time to find Cally in the living room looking for him. "Is it safe to drink a beer while cooking, do you think?" Cally asked.

"Are you done with the knife part?"

"Yeah, mostly."

"It's probably okay. Can I come and hang out, or do you want to be alone?"

"You can come and pour me a beer and get a hug for it," Cally said imperiously.

"This is a reasonable deal," Tony said. He was nearly run over by the boys, who seemed to have exhausted their cooperation for one day. They took off upstairs to slam two doors and keep away from each other for a few hours. "They've been together a lot today," Tony explained to Cally when he raised a brow at the noise.

"I sort of feel like that about my parents. We'd get along better by text for a while."

Tony did his assigned job of pouring the beer, and his reward was Cally holding onto him for a long time.

"I love you, babe," Tony said, looking up to run two knuckles down his cheek. "You were good today, and that must have been a hell of an experience."

"I still feel like I can't stop buzzing or something. My brain feels fizzy. I want to go workout or something, do something to make it stop. Could I do that without permission tomorrow?"

Tony stepped back and ran his hand down Cally's arm. "Call Mickey, or text him or whatever. Ask for a short set of things to do, and you can come to the Cubs facility with me. I have to go in and have a meeting in the afternoon when Craig comes in."

Cally nodded. "That's a good idea. Dad said he thinks I won't know when to stop, that I might overdo it."

"Josh is pretty smart about that stuff. He's in good shape for a guy his age."

"I'll tell Mickey that, that he needs to set limits."

"What is this you're cooking?" Tony asked.

"Oh, it's just some vegetables and meat that get roasted. I'm waiting for the oven to go bing."

"Does it need to be watched?"

"Not really, oh! Wait! I get it. That's a tone. So you mean something else from what you said. You want to go snuggle!" He grinned in triumph at figuring it out, and Tony was a little relieved he didn't have to explain.

The oven went bing, Cally sorted out what went where inside it, set a timer and then led Tony to his favourite place. They didn't talk much beyond Cally teasing him when his stomach noticed the smell of food and growled in anticipation.

"You're quiet," Cally said. "Is that normal or should I worry about you?"

"I'm just thinking about things. I watched your thing on TV with Steegs and Milchuk, and they want to talk about our players tomorrow. I want to know what I want to say about guys in advance. Like you did with your thing, but I can't really read it off of notes."

Tony was still thinking while they were eating. Cally was preening over compliments from the boys on dinner, and everyone seemed happy. There were worse ways to finish a Saturday.

"Can you come to my game, Dad?" Pat asked.

"Joe wants a meeting, Patty, but when is it?"

"Not until six."

"I'll put my foot down on the meeting running that long, so yeah, definitely. Can Andy drive you, or ―"

"Gavin will do it."

"Okay, if that's fine with Gavin and his parents. Craig should be in by one, so no way am I going to sit and gasbag over who we can call up for the whole afternoon."

"What does that mean?" Cally asked. "You guys call up guys from another team?"

"Yeah, babe, just like the Lions have the Cubs, we have a team in a lower league we can steal from if we need to."

Cally smirked and said, "They aren't called the Kittens, are they, Tony?"

"No, Cally, they are not," Tony said, amused.

"They should be."

"Sure," Tony said, enjoying Cally's amused-with-himself smile. Cally ducked his head and looked up through his lashes. They were flirting, but he was not absolutely certain Cally knew that's what they were doing.

"So what do you talk about?" Cally said, frowning suddenly. "Which guy to pick or what?"

"Yeah. First, we figure out who we are likely to lose to the Lions, and then we talk about who we need to fill in with."

Cally nodded and looked engrossed in his own thoughts while he finished eating.

"You guys watching a game tonight?" Andy asked while he stacked plates to carry into the kitchen.

"We can watch with you if you don't mind me asking questions," Cally said.

They watched, and Tony left the boys to talk to Cally while he ran over rosters in his head. He knew how he'd handle things if he had the power to run the whole enterprise. But if he had that kind of power, the Cubs would have spent more on players long before the current crisis showed them what they were lacking.

"This is all because of me, isn't it?" Cally asked Tony once they were in bed.

"What is, babe?"

"Your meeting tomorrow and how much you're thinking about stuff. They have to put someone on the Lions to take my spot."

"It's not your fault, Cally. But yeah, that's the start of it. We're just doing this a bit earlier than usual. Mostly it's the playoffs that make this mess happen. How are you anyway? Still fizzing?"

"A little. That was really weird today. And my phone, holy shit. I just looked for something from Eileen and then turned it off. Andy showed me Skype, so I'll text her tomorrow and try it out on her."

"Sounds good. Babe, you're handling this okay, you know?"

"Am I?" Cally said, "I don't even know. I want to forget all about it, but I don't know how to make it leave my mind. I want to be with you, but ―"

"So, be, Cally," Tony said. "Come closer."

Cally skitched closer. "I don't know how to do that thing you showed me, the way of being all ― I don't know, it's not tough exactly, but you made me feel so turned on. I don't how to do that to you."

"You can curse in Russian, babe. I think this is inside you too. I'll tell you how I think of it, but you'll laugh." Tony smiled, remembering how Cally had looked back in the day, how he'd acted at first. It was a little hard to take that posturing seriously now that he knew Cally better than Cally knew himself. But he had been a forceful personality then. "I remember meeting you the second or third time and thinking, fuck, he comes in the room cock first."

Cally laughed, too loud like he did, and Tony grinned at him in the dark. He still was a big personality. Cally thrust his hips forward and laughed again. "I can't stop laughing," he confessed, unnecessarily.

"I love your laugh. Sometime, we'll get a little drunk and put the right music on, get your hips moving, and then you'll get it. I'm sure of it."

"Okay," Cally said skeptically. "For now, though, I want to kiss you."

"You should always have what you want," Tony said, giving up his mouth to the softest of kisses. Cally put more soul into it as he got going. They both got going, but it was clear Cally wanted to love him, not sex him up. Sometimes that's what you need, Tony reminded himself.

He was half sleeping the next morning remembering a time before they'd lived together when he'd been hungry for Cally all the time, and yet, sometimes, it had all been a bit too, something, too much cock first. Maybe it had gone too much to gentleness and love, but the pendulum would swing again. He could just wait it out.

Cally insisted on cooking him eggs, and he wasn't going to turn down getting looked after, so he sat at the kitchen table and watched his man and enjoyed the morning.

"What if I can't dance?" Cally asked in the middle of breakfast. The smell of food had drawn the boys out of bed, and they both stopped eating and looked up.

"You can curse in Russian," Tony said.

Cally smiled at him, sly, and ducked his head.

"I feel like we should just ask no questions here," Andy said.

"Wise, kid, Andy," Tony said, and then he added, "Have I told you boys today how much I love you? I do. Every day, I think about what a lucky man I am to have you."

Pat broke up laughing, and Andy speared his eggs violently.

"I don't get it," Cally said with a sigh of annoyance.

"Andy made a bet," Pat said.

"I still don't get it."

"Oh, shit, man, sorry," Pat said, and then he apologized for swearing. Andy laughed at him for that, but Pat ignored him and launched into the condensed history of Andy's ill-advised bets with his father. "I think Dad's teaching him to not gamble or something, but he's got a hard head. It's taking years."

Tony was surprised Pat had ever figured out there was an ulterior motive. He had started out trying to teach his smart kid he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, but it had backfired and made Andy more and more determined to always know his shit before the bet was laid down. He was taking a tougher course load than most hockey-brained boys, so Tony counted that the ultimate win. Even if he was pretty sure the kid bet on hockey all the time.

"So if Andy gives in and says he loves Tony, Tony wins the bet?" Cally asked, frown on his face.

"We never set an actual winning condition," Tony said. "It's more does he get on board with the emotional maturity idea."

"Which you guys are getting from me?" Cally asked pointing at his own chest.

"Yeah," Tony said a little defensively. "You're a good influence."

"I am?"

"Dad's way happier now than he was," Pat said and then rolled his eyes when everyone turned to stare at him. "Not, like, just this past week, dudes, geez. I mean since Cally moved in or whatever."

Tony's phone buzzed while they were cleaning up, and he was surprised to see it was Donna. "Did you turn your phone off?" he asked Cally.

"Yeah," Cally said. "It was going to explode."

Donna said they were coming by in a few minutes, and Tony thought she sounded very weird and very weary.

They came, Donna and Josh both, but they didn't want to stay. Tony took the hint and found a sudden need to get out of the front hall.

"We kind of need to go," Andy whispered urgently to him in the kitchen.

"Why are you going so early?" Tony demanded in a normal voice.

"Pattycakes has a meeting before the game, and I need to get with my boy about something."

"Get with your boy?" Tony said. "Christ, I spend my whole fucking day with guys with more zits than you, and some days I have no fucking idea what you're saying."

"I totally don't buy that, Dad," Andy said sternly, but he never explained which boy he had to get with or why.

Tony had learned to accept that Andy didn't have to explain himself anymore. It had taken a while; he had a hard head too. He didn't ask again but said, "So wait a few minutes for the big meeting in the hallway to end, but if you have to go, make a shit lot of noise before you're on top of them, kid."

"Is this like the last big pitch to try to get him to go back to Vancouver?"

"Likely."

"You're not worried?"

"No. And if ― when he wants to go visit, he'll go. The second I try to stop him, it's done. That's how love works, kid. You know how you have to hold your stick to make the really sweet shots?"

"Whoa, segue, Dad. I always thought that metaphor was about jacking off, but okay. You have to hold it soft," Andy said.

Pat drifted into the room with his bag over his shoulder eyeing them up like they were dangerous.

"So love is like that. You try to clutch it hard, you'll crush it," Tony said, miming smashing something in his fist. "And this is the important part of the lesson, Andrew, so listen to it. Most of your shithead friends, hockey fuckers, bros, assholes, and boys you gotta get with will tell you that you hold onto girls like that. Tight, like they might run away on you if you aren't practically strangling them all the time. They're full of shit. You know damn well they're full of shit on every other topic but hockey, you remember they don't know shit about women."

"Okay, but girls," Andy said, and made the serious face he wore when he picked holes in everything anyone ever said, "they don't always want to be the glass thing you're afraid of breaking."

"No shit, kid," Tony said, wondering who had taught him that one, and how his ego had handled it. "Your stick won't break so easy either, but if you want it to score for you, you caress it, you don't use it like a club."

"Unless you have a slapper," Andy said. "And I realize you had no slapper, Dad, but ―"

"Jesus, take this colourful metaphor too far, why don't you, kid?"

"I will, Dad, I will," he said, with a grin that Tony couldn't hate him for, considering where it came from. "I think we killed enough time, Dad, so thanks for the weirdest sex-ed conversation ever."

Tony looked over and saw Cally standing in the doorway. The boys pushed past him, calling out goodbyes that Tony barely heard. "Your parents decided to go home?" Tony asked.

Cally nodded. He looked really weird. "Come here, babe," Tony said and held onto him, not too tight, not too loose.

"I wanted them to go, but I feel like I'm hollowed out inside."

Tony rubbed his back and let him decide when he'd had enough desperate holding on, maybe a little too tight. "Can I give you some advice, babe?"

"Yes," Cally said with feeling.

"Text your mom and tell her you miss her already and give her a time to Skype with you tomorrow. Don't forget the timezone thing."

"Okay, yeah, we talked about that, but didn't set a time, let me check my calendar." Cally went off to his office, and Tony let him be.

He set up his laptop in the kitchen and wrote up a quick sketch of his thoughts, more to help him get his head around it than to use in the meeting. He was usually a lot more confident about things, but Cally had taken over his attention, and he felt disconnected from the team.

He was overthinking it, and he needed to find a distraction.

"Tony."

He looked around at Cally in the doorway. The shadows hid his face, and he'd put on a black shirt that morning, something loose; he looked like a ghost leaning in the doorway, the shade of a man who didn't exist anymore but wasn't really dead. "What's up, babe?" Tony said, trying not to sound freaked out.

"I think I want to work on that thing we talked about."

"Which thing?" Tony asked, but then Cally walked in the room, trying hard to be the stalking predator. And Tony knew which thing. It wasn't quite right, the walk; something was missing, but when Tony stood up and Cally came close enough to tilt his head back with a firm hand, a little like some move from an old movie, it got the job done. Cally kissed hard, scraped with his teeth, clutched at Tony with his other hand, squeezed him closer, like he wanted to lift him up bodily and carry him away.

Suddenly, Cally pulled away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He looked a bit wired and like he was still fizzing. "Not in the kitchen, though," he said and wrinkled his nose up in a frown of distaste. A laugh was tugging his mouth into a smile and sparkling in his eyes.

Tony couldn't help himself, he started laughing at the idea of the two of them, grown men with children, fucking in the kitchen like some crappy porno. Cally joined in, and he looked so bright and alive inside the dull and baggy clothes Sean McCallum had hidden in most of the time. Tony loved his light, his bright, bright light.

"Come on, I want an advanced lesson in making you feel good," Cally said and grabbed his hand and towed him toward the bedroom.

Tony discovered that giddy laughter was actually a good setup for sexual ecstasy. He'd always thought sex was about darker feelings. But even when he was learning to top like a man in love with his own dick, Cally wanted to love Tony and laugh at himself all mixed in with the rest of it.

"I'm not sure I need the gym now," Cally said after.

"We can go whenever, by the way," Tony told him, rolling over to snuggle him, smell the acrid scent of hard work. Tony had goaded him into some real effort. "After we have a shower," he added.

Cally wrapped him up in long arms and hummed a non-committal reply.

Hunger drove them to the shower, the kitchen, and then they drove to the arena, just like old times.

Tony parked in the lot at work, noted Joe's car there already, and asked Cally if he wanted to go say hello.

"Oh, yeah, sure. Can you show me around a little?"

"Yup, we can do that. You know the arena entrance is around the other side. We went in the side door over there. This is the office entrance." Tony swiped his keycard and they went in. "Nobody much will be around today because the team just got in last night and they're off today, but if it was game day, it would be hopping."

"This is my office," Tony said, tapping the door with his name beside it on a brass plaque. "We're going around this way to see Joey first."

"Tony!" Joe said when he tapped on the open door frame. "And holy shit, Cally! Come in guys. Cally, fuck, that was a masterful fucking performance. I had chills a few times, and you nearly fucking made Uncle Bob cry. Amazing."

"Okay," Cally said, "I sort of understand all that. How's Miranda?"

"In love with you," Joe said with a sigh. "She loved those flowers you sent her. Thanks for setting the bar higher."

"What flowers?" Tony said.

"My mom told me what to get. I told her about Miranda helping me, and I said I wanted to say thanks, so we went to a store. Dad was so bored he said he would leave us there, and Mom said something about getting a cab, and it was kind of like now where I think I'm missing something."

"Married people fight," Joe said, "but I was kidding with you. She really liked them, and I was joking that I'd have to work harder to impress her."

"Oh!" Cally said. "Okay, I get it. But she loves you, Joe. You don't need to impress her."

Tony tried not to grin at Joe's face. Cally wasn't wrong, but it was hilarious to hear that said so casually in Joe's office. He said to Joe, "Cally's dying for a workout, so he's got instructions from the Lions guy and I'm going to show him the gym here. You ready to talk, or do you want me to take my time?"

"No, no, I'll get Craig. I think Steegs wants to talk in about an hour, hour and a half, so we're in time."

Tony took Cally around the rest of the office, pointing out who did what where, and then he showed him the players' area. They were in the part of the newer office that was built up against the back of the original arena building, and the big metal door that led down into the bowels of the old barn was right next to the players' rec room. The gym was just beyond the vacant rec room and locker room and also empty of anyone when they got there.

"You're set up okay?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, Mickey said to call him and he'd talk me through anything I wanted."

Tony left him and spent a useful half an hour talking prospects with Joe before Craig showed up to offer opinions Tony wasn't very sure were as useful. Craig was a career minor league coach, and Tony thought he was stuck in the past.

They got the coach of the IcePirates on the phone and had a round-table where they talked about the merits of who could slot up how high on each team. Tony thought they were all a bit hopelessly optimistic, but maybe the way he liked to look things square on was not the way to get ahead in their world. He wasn't sure. Sometimes they sounded like player agents, not coaches.

They finished up with the sketch of a plan that no one was happy with. That was to be expected and likely was an indication that it was good.

When the IcePirates' coach was off the phone, Craig said, "So are we looking to sign some guys to put down there for a few weeks? Are the Lions looking to load up on kids coming out of college or what?"

"I think that's something Tony and I will talk to Steegs about, Craig. Thanks for your help on this," Joe said.

"Okay, let me know what to expect," Craig answered and left.

"You ready for Steegs?" Joe asked Tony.

"Yeah, yeah. I think Craig gave us a good thing to lead with. If we're giving up players, getting back is important too."

They got Steegs on the phone, and he had his head scout sit in, but not Graves. They talked it all through again, but while Joe could tell the IcePirates to pound salt if they didn't like Joe's plans, the Lions at least nominally called the tune for the Cubs, so the tone of their second time through it was very different. Tony chafed under the annoyance of having someone take their needs for granted. And he also suspected that Steegs was being less than honest with them about his budget constraints.

"We've got too many guys that aren't ready yet," Steegs complained.

Joe rolled his eyes and sat back and glared at the phone sitting on the desk between them.

"Who is behind on your expected timeline?" Tony asked blandly.

"Fuck off, Tony," Steegs exploded, and Joe raised his brows, but Tony just held up his hand. "Fine, okay, yeah, none of this should be news. Fuck. Okay, I'll be blunt. If we have to sacrifice your season we will. If we leave you empty of guys, you can strip the IcePirates and do the best with that. We need anyone who might even have a game in him because the problem is bigger than Cally. I've got three depth guys who are in such a precarious physical state that two of them need to be sat out now for a couple of weeks. And I'm doing it. I'm not worrying about getting a better playoff position. I'm going in with the best possible team."

Tony nodded, and Joe shook his head, disgusted. "Steegs, you figure you could have mentioned this before now?" Joe said.

"I didn't want it getting out. But now half the fucking press in the world is examining our team for any story they can find until they find the next thing to care about. I can't hide. I'm going to focus on finding someone to fill Cally's spot. Then I'm looking for depth, and a better defenceman, which I won't find, and then I'll look at the list of guys my scouts have to try to sign coming out of college or junior. You might turn into a kindergarten for a few weeks."

"Better that than we call up a bunch of 25-year-old failures," Tony said. "The days when that worked are long gone. I got Jonas and I got two other guys here, guys of yours, that need good linemates that aren't going to teach them how to shotgun beers before a game or get drugs across the border. I want earnest young things that have nothing on their minds but Call of Duty scores and hockey."

"Can I throw in some quality veteran guys, Tony? I thought that was your thing," Steegs groused.

"We have enough of those. I want guys with shit to prove."

Joe sat back and raised a brow but let Tony run the show. He argued Steegs around to a position of promising to give more notice to the scouts' lists, but that's all they got."

"Interesting," Joe said when they were finished. "Steegs seems to like fighting with you. Only other guys I know that's true of is me and Cally."

"My kids, Joey, don't forget them."

"They're your apples, buddy, don't complain if they hit you in the head on the way off your tree."

Tony grinned at him and considered what he wanted to tell him, what he should tell him, what he owed him. "Fuck it," he said decisively. "Joey, I think Steegs is looking to offer me a job. And before you explode, I'm saying no until I know where Cally is at. If he's a player still, I'll sit back here on the Cubs and let him have his run."

"Cally is how old?" Joe asked, not the question Tony had expected.

"Almost 27 now."

"What are the chances he can do it at that age?"

"Fuck if I know. I'm letting him try if he wants it."

"And if he doesn't? If this is retirement for him?" Joe said.

"Fuck if I know," Tony said and grinned, daring Joe to give him shit for it. "Steegs might be thinking about his own retirement in a couple of months depending on how the playoffs go."

Joe nodded. "I heard a rumour he's firing Graves. I've heard he has a replacement lined up."

"Well, it's not me," Tony said with a laugh. "But if it's true, it'll be a young guy. The question is when is this going down?"

"Now is what I heard. He's pulling the trigger on the Nickerson deal, and we should assume that kid is showing up Monday or Tuesday, and then he's going to get his house in order."

"You think the situation with Cally has interrupted this?"

"No, no. I ― this was prime information. I think he's already fired Graves. I think there was something brewing there for a while, and the whole thing is going to go down soon."

"Hell of a way to run up to the playoffs."

"Not if the new guy is good at making trades, it's not."

Tony narrowed his eyes at Joe and figured he knew something he wasn't saying. If he didn't want to say, Tony wasn't going to ask. "Are we good, Joe? I think I should go find Cally and see how he is."

"Sure, sure. It's Sunday, it's not a game day, I should go home. How is it going, Tony? Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Cally's parents left, and we'll have a little more breathing room. It's weird, Joey. Really weird. I like him. Not to be, I don't know, make you uncomfortable or whatever, but I love him. Him, as he is. And I miss who he was sometimes, but I don't at the same time. There are some things about Cally now that I really like better." Tony considered that. "I think I would feel constantly guilty about that if I had time."

"I get it," Joe said. "With Miranda, it was like every day she was some new person for a while. Sicker at first, and then convinced it was over, and then when she got better, she got angry, and I would ask myself if that had always been there. Had her filters been all stripped off and I was seeing the real woman for the first time? But in the end, I love her for who she is now. So I get you. Fuck feeling guilty, though. Miranda would say that too. Just deal with the problem in front of you, and fuck guilt."

"Yeah, okay. I'll take that under advisement. The problem is his parents don't agree on the new, improved Cally. They want their son back."

"Didn't he leave home ten years ago?" Joe asked.

"Yup. And they seem to want a do-over on that."

Joe tapped his fingers. "Are they going to cause you trouble?"

"No," Tony said, shaking his head. "No. They just need time."

"You have a lawyer's opinion on that?"

"No," Tony said, frowning. "Shit. Something to add to the list. I'll make an appointment. I bet there's other shit we need to talk about. Cally's agent is supposed to come see him this coming week too."

"Go enjoy your day, Tony," Joe said as he stood up. "I think I'll go home too, see if I can surprise Miranda. Take her to dinner or something."

Tony wandered around towards the gym but found Cally before he got that far. He was in the rec room absolutely destroying Jonas at ping pong while a few guys stood around watching.

"Hey, Tony," Cally said, distractedly, while he served up a nasty rocket. "It turns out … I know how to play," he lunged and returned a ball that should have been bouncing off the ceiling, "ping pong."

"Cursing in Russian, ping pong, scrambled eggs," Tony said. "Weird skill set. You sound like a hockey player."

Cally grinned and sent the ball bouncing right at Jonas's head.

"Game over, I win," he said and raised his arms. The guys drifted off, all but Jonas, and Tony watched him, clasping hands and laughing with Cally. Jonas really was a very attractive man, but Cally seemed utterly indifferent.

"Tony!" he said, walking over to share his good mood. "I had such a good workout, thanks for bringing me. And I met Jonas and we hung out. He says he'll skate with me if I want because he does some skating drills every day early."

"He does? Jonas?" Tony called over.

Jonas smiled at him blandly. "Yes, I usually come every day if we are not on the road. I used to do this many years ago, and it helps me focus. I do some drills, concentrate on the drill, no other distractions. But Cally, if he wants to come after and try one on one, maybe he will see what is in there where the ping pong was hiding."

"See, he got it right away when I explained how my brain works," Cally said. "I'm getting better at explaining."

"Or I'm just really smart, Cally," Jonas said, totally deadpan, and Cally laughed, delighted.

"That might be a good idea, Jonas," Tony said. "When he gets cleared, we'll set up a time, and I want to see this drill if that doesn't interfere with your chill or whatever."

"My chill?" Jonas said, tilting his head.

"Tony has a teenage son," Cally explained.

"Oh, okay, that perhaps explains why Tony takes no shit."

"Perhaps," Tony said. "You done?" he asked Cally.

"Yup. You want to get to the game on time. That's important, isn't it?" Cally waved at Jonas, and gathered up his bag and followed Tony out through the building.

"Yeah, it is important, this game. I wish. Shit."

"What?"

"I wish you could come. It never seemed to be a bad thing before, but I wish you could come with me and watch my boy play."

Cally walked close beside him and was quiet. "I think it's okay. I'll talk to Eileen and Mom, and look at my phone. I hope my laptop comes tomorrow."

Tony took Cally's hand once they were in the car and tried to say what he felt, that he'd be there with Cally through all of it, but he didn't know how. Cally looked over at Tony while he sat there, not able to move, and he knew Cally was worried, confused. "I love you, Tony," Cally said. "Does that help?"

"It does," he said and laughed to cover how emotional he was. "Okay, driving now."

"Okay."

Tony had time to change clothes, stuff his pockets with sharpies and take an extra couple of hats in different colours in case he wanted to disappear a little. "I'll eat on the way," he said to Cally.

"I'll make myself something fabulous, and you'll miss out," Cally said with a smile.

Pat's game was fun, and he did have to switch hats and sides of the rink twice to get a chance to watch unbothered. The attention still stroked his ego, though.

Pat decided to just go home to his mother's which made sense to Tony. He didn't know where Andy was, or what he was planning. He stopped for gas on the way home and bought a chocolate bar for Cally without even giving it a thought. He had it in his hand in the hallway at home when he remembered that this Cally would never remember the hundred other times he'd done it.

"Tony?" Cally called.

"Yeah, babe, um." He thought about throwing it out. He stared at in his hand and felt something tear in his heart. His man was gone. Forever. Not dead. They would never have a funeral for him, but he was gone. Tony _had_ loved him. He had. He had loved him for years.

"Tony?" Cally said. "You're scaring me."

Tony looked up, and Cally was deep in the doorway, like he was afraid to come closer. Tony tried to crack a smile, but he was afraid to, afraid he'd crack open. He must have made some noise. He thought he had already been making some noises, that he'd maybe been sobbing.

Cally came at a run, it seemed like, but that was impossible, the doorway was only a few feet away. Tony felt like he'd been swept up and crushed to Cally's chest like they'd just won the cup, it hurt that much, felt that good.

"Jesus, is Andy home?" Tony asked, voice a husky rasp. "Shit."

"No," Cally said. "He's at a friend's house. He texted me. Tony, it's okay, calm down." Cally rubbed his back, and Tony took his advice and got his shit together.

He pulled away, and Cally let him go but kept his arms out like maybe Tony was going to fall over like a kid on the ice for the first time. The candy bar was still in Tony's hand. "I got you this," he said, a genuine laugh chasing the roughness from his voice. He held it out and wiped his eyes with his other hand.

"What is it?" Cally said, plucking it from his hand.

"Uh, try it, babe, see if you like it."

Cally smiled at him, not really getting it, but he opened the wrapper.

"Sorry, it's a little squished and melted."

Cally took a small bite and his eyebrows went up. His eyes were so blue, dark-looking in the low light. His hair was longer, the colour showing more, and it was brushed with copper-gold. He was a hell of a man. A beautiful man.

"Tony this is fantastic," he said, words blunted by the sticky caramel and chocolate. "This is really fantastic. Thank you. I need water now, though." He didn't hesitate to take another bite, and he grinned at himself and at the silliness of life, at how good the candy bar was. Tony smiled back at the happiness uncorrupted by memories of disappointments and discouragement. "Come on," Cally said, "you're coming with me." He grabbed Tony's hand and led him to the kitchen.

Tony leaned on the counter openly looking at his man with no effort to hide his feelings while Cally got a glass of water and chased the sticky mess from his teeth. "I love you, Cally."

Cally nodded. "Yeah, I know," he said seriously.

"How do you know?" Tony asked.

Cally shrugged. "It's a thing I know. The way you look after me. You worry about me. You want me to be me even if it makes you uncomfortable." Tony flushed and looked away. "I do, don't I? Make you uncomfortable sometimes."

"I don't ever want to be the guy who tells you to tone it done, babe. I realized that in the hospital. And your parents ― they love you, I know that, I see that ― but they want to, okay ― you're going to laugh at this way of explaining it."

"I like laughing, tell me," Cally demanded.

"When you have a guy ― a young guy, like the Cubs have sometimes, and he's just developing, it's really easy to think you should draw a shape for him and demand he fill it. A lot of coaches think that's exactly what coaching is. I think it's finding the best guy inside the kid, seeing who he can be, and that's a hell of a lot harder, and you never know what you're going to get."

"Ohhhhh," Cally said, and then he stared off into space for a second. "I'm not laughing, Tony, because now I understand my dad more than ever. Oh, I get it now. This is why he's worried about you. He said something that made no sense. He said he likes you, thinks you're a good guy, but he is worried you're wrong for me, and I asked why, and he just couldn't explain it. He thinks you'll let me be the wrong shape."

" _I_ worry about that. Christ, Cally, it would be so easy to just try to make you into who you used to be."

Cally shrugged that off like it meant nothing. "I want you to be happy, Tony. I want ― nothing is easy right now. And I want you to have it just be good. I also think you should tell me things more. Maybe. I don't know."

Tony stepped back and gave him a long, considering look. He had eaten the rest of the candy bar and chased it with ice water, and he was frowning down at his hands.

"What exactly are we talking about here?" Tony asked.

Cally shrugged and wouldn't look up.

"Sex?"

"Yeah, and other stuff, but mostly, yeah. I just don't know what the hell I'm doing!"

"You do fine, babe."

"But I want you to be happy. Happy with me. I don't know how to explain it, and maybe this is the wrong time to talk about this. Maybe ― Tony why were you so upset? Did I do something? Can I fix it?"

Tony almost laughed, but he was afraid Cally would take it wrong. "Babe, babe, come here okay. You already have fixed it. You are what I need, always, come here."

Cally tasted of chocolate, and he was so much man to hold onto. He was everything. Tony could just get his fingers threaded through the loosely curling strands of his hair and tug a little, tilt his head how he wanted, and Cally produced a noise that went right to Tony's cock and woke it up.

"Babe, you got any reason to stay up tonight?"

"Um, what? No? Tony, do that again."

"Bossy," Tony said fondly, and tugged on his hair and kissed him deeply. He decided to just go for it, so he stuck his other hand down the back of Cally's shorts and squeezed. That noise was even better. "I'm just going to tell you right out, babe, to hell with smooth, I really want to fuck you right now."

"I ― um," Cally pulled away and stepped back, and he looked nervous, unsure. "I think that sounds good, but also, I'm ― I'm not scared. But I'm not sure. I think ― I don't know what I think."

"You can say no, babe."

"I know." He nodded firmly. "I don't want to say no, but ― I'm just nervous."

Tony smiled at him, held out his hand. "That can make it more fun, which is a secret you usually don't learn until after you're never nervous anymore."

"Okay?" Cally looked confused. "I'm not sure I understand."

"You want to find out?"

"Yeah, okay, I ― yeah, oh shit."

"What?" Tony, asked.

"I'm tomato coloured, aren't I?" Cally smiled sadly and looked like he had no hope that Tony would lie and say no.

"You are flushed a bit, babe. Come on, let me show you what else makes your whole body flush red."

Cally was nervous and prone to laughter. Tony couldn't call it inappropriate because it was obvious sex was never going to be serious again, so he let himself join in. Cally was prone to loud moaning and letting his eyes flutter shut on a sigh of pleasure. He was also prone to bossy instructions. His nerves faded fast, and his natural inclination to drive the play took over.

"Tony that was amazing," Cally said, snuggling into him after. "Amazing. Better than bacon."

"Better than chocolate cake?"

"I'll think about it," Cally said archly. "I love you, though. I'm lucky to have you here to help me all the time."

"I think I helped myself, there, babe," Tony said with a laugh.

"That's how it's supposed to work. You taught me that."

"Yeah, I guess. Go clean up, and then sleep."

It was easy to say, but Tony didn't sleep very well. Sex with Cally had been great, fun, and sweet as it always was, but it was just another thing that would never be like it was. The man he'd known so well was gone. The man who'd known him so well. The man who'd done things with him he'd never done with anyone else didn't remember any of it happening.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one remembers seeing it drop, was it ever alive? Cally thought the old him was some other man who didn't exist anymore. Tony wasn't sure that his own past was even real anymore, that who he had been was even who he was, or if any of it mattered.

Joe had changed over the years. That was a thing he had noticed and chalked up to Miranda's illness, growing older, the kids leaving home. But Joe was not the same man he had been. And Tony wasn't either. His kid had said it all; he was happier with Cally. Either version of him. That's what he had to hold onto, that together they were better than they'd been before.


	13. Chapter 13

Tony wasn't well rested, but he got up and showered and got ready to face the day earlier than he needed to. He found Cally in the kitchen scrambling eggs.

"Tony! I'm cooking for you, and come here," he said firmly.

Cally gathered him up and kissed him and started backing him up until he was against the wall. "I enjoyed last night."

"I got that impression, babe. You're cute when you're all pink and flushed and moaning." He said it lightly, meant to tease, not taunt. It was, if he were honest, a test. Cally had always been uncomfortable in the light of day over that side of his sexuality. Not anymore. He laughed, loud and happy, and he kissed Tony again before running back to rescue his eggs.

It felt like Cally was running ahead of him all the time, becoming a new man every day. All he could do was try to keep up. "When do you go in today?" Tony asked

"They want me at nine, and it will take most of the day, they said. Andy stayed with his friend in New Haven last night, so I'll just call the team and tell them to come get me."

"Sure." Tony sat down and ogled Cally's ass freely while he waited for breakfast. It calmed his gut. He was worrying about too many things, he shouldn't have a churning gut first thing in the morning. "Oh, fuck off," he told his phone when it buzzed just as Cally was plating breakfast.

"Joe," Tony said after he'd given in and answered the thing.

"Tony, the morning person," Joe said. "Did I wake you up?"

"Nope. What's up?"

"Steegs wants to see us in his office this morning, nine o'clock sharp."

"Interesting timing. Cally goes in for his physical and to see the trainers this morning, so I'll drive him. You want to go in together?"

"No, no. I'll take my car in case he wants to keep me. Rumours say Nickerson is already in New Haven, so you might be taking him back to Bridgeport."

"Okay, Joe, do we know the topic of this meeting? Something we didn't cover in an hour and a half yesterday?"

"Rumours, that's all I got. Wear something you won't mind having your picture taken in."

"Oh, okay. I'll get Cally to pick something out," he said sarcastically.

"Fuck, you're a rude son of a bitch before ten. See you in New Haven. Try to smile."

"What am I picking out?" Cally asked.

"Joey says something's up with the Lions, and we have a meeting. He told me to dress nice."

"Oh, I can pick out your clothes," Cally said. "Make you look good."

"Yeah. Babe, um, see ―"

Cally laughed at him. "I know you were joking. I'll pick out a tie, though. Something nice and not dull, but not something I'd wear."

"The eggs are good."

"Overcooked, but that's your fault so I'm off the hook."

"How is it my fault? You were attacking me."

"Hmm. You looked tasty so I tasted. Not my fault."

Cally found him a tie in the Cubs colours that emphasized who he worked for, so he wore that and a shirt in the perfect shade of blue. He looked good. He even fussed with his hair a little. He didn't care a lot of the time over what he wore, but he was glad his fashion consultant had talked him out of the dull grey suit with a white shirt.

His fashion consultant needed help on what to take with him, however. "You have a bag you always use, and you'll want things. Your water bottle, extra shorts, extra socks, your shower bag, but your locker will have a lot of things in it."

"I never looked in it when I was there before."

"So we pretend it's empty, and we pack you a bag for the day," Tony told him what to take, likely overthinking it, but it helped settle his nerves. "Do you have your ID?"

"Um, in my wallet?" Cally said.

"It's a keycard, a lot of guys have it on a string, you used to, let me look in the drawer. Yup. Here you go. It opens the door to the practice facility and the locker room."

Cally took it and threaded the string through his fingers. "Jonesy said I'll be like a rookie, doing dumb things. And he said usually rookies think they shouldn't ask for help, but I'm supposed to."

"You'll find your way, babe, by being you. You'll find who likes you and who is an asshole. The only way to live life is to get out there and experience it."

"There's a lot of rules, though. Hockey. Things I won't do right."

"Yeah." Tony sighed. "You can't ever do it right. You got the big thing wrong before you ever picked up a stick."

Cally frowned at him, and then his frown cleared to outrage. He looked just like Josh. "No! Not wrong!"

"Babe, simmer down. I know, okay? I meant from their point of view. You and me will never be inside the loop all the way, never. And if you're smart, you'll remember that. I don't want to tell you who to like or trust or be friends with, but keep it in the back of your mind that you will never be all the way in."

"Jesus," Cally said, hands on hips, still glaring.

Cally looked very upset, and Tony wanted to soothe that away, but he'd been thinking all night that any plans Steegs might have in mind for him could all blow away the first time Steegs was reminded how high the price of having Tony around could go, granddaughter or no. "Babe. It's a hard thing to say. It's a harder life to live where you have to relearn it ten times until it sinks in. Love your brothers, but watch your back."

"I don't want that to be true, but I can't argue with you, Tony."

Tony couldn't do anything about the serious cast he'd set onto Cally's face, so he just got on with filling his pockets with wallet and keys.

They got going, only a little late, but Tony knew how to make up time, where the cops would be, where they wouldn't. It was the same as knowing which corner to avoid against the Rays. More things Cally didn't know, and would learn the hard way.

"Tony, why are you going to the Lions office today?" Cally asked.

"Steegs called, so we go. And Joe has heard some stuff that I'm not allowed to tell you. It's just rumours. But it's best for everyone if you're surprised along with them when news breaks."

"Oh. Oh, I guess that happens a lot? You know things the team doesn't want to tell the players."

"I wouldn't say a lot, but it happens. Hockey's a pretty small in-group of guys. It's not weird to see brothers on the same team, guys in the front office who all played together, that sort of thing. The teams have relationships with other teams because the GMs were roommates in junior or whatever. Everyone thinks that's fine and normal because they're used to it."

"And we're not," Cally said, "fine and normal."

He sounded tired, cynical, like the old Cally, and it raised Tony's hackles and scared him both. "For some people."

Cally nodded. 

"Is me being on the team making your job hard. Or causing trouble or something?" he asked a few miles later.

"No. Not trouble, babe. No. When we first met I worked for the Lions, but the Cubs job was on the table, and the more we got closer, the more it seemed like taking it was the right move. It's a better job, and I don't ever want to do the bullshit PR job I was doing before."

"And now I might not be going back, though."

"No, but you never know in this game where you're going. But right now, Cally, if a team came and offered me the best job, the perfect position, I'd say no before they were done asking."

"Because of me," Cally said. "That's not fair, though."

"Life ain't fair. And not just because of you. Patty is at the age where I will not go hop across the country. I won't. Not for anything. But I don't think twice about being here for you, okay? You need to count on me, and you can."

"I want you to count on me too, Tony."

"Oh, you think I don't? You get me through the day and the night."

"You didn't sleep last night."

"Sorry if I woke you up."

"That's not why I said that."

"I know." Tony sighed. Cally did not let him deflect very often. He hadn't learned much gentleness with other people. A hockey team didn't seem like the place he'd learn it either.

"I don't know what normal is," Cally said. "So I worry about you. I think I would anyway."

"I'm a bit stressed at work. And part of it I can't really talk about with you, but ... I should, though. I think, maybe after today. I'm sorry this is complicated."

"You should go to the gym today, you'll feel better."

"That is likely true. I might just hide there, forget my phone in my office, and see how much I can make my legs ache."

"You look hot in that suit, by the way."

"Cally, babe, you are so good to me."

Cally smiled and ducked his head. He really was cute when he flushed.

Tony turned into the familiar old place and showed Cally the door the players used that bypassed the offices and led straight to the locker room and the gym. "Are you skating?"

"I don't know. I hope so!" He waved and jogged to the door through the morning cold. Tony took a more sedate walk, checked the time and detoured to the PR department where the good coffee used to be hidden. He scored a drinkable cupful and timed his return to the main hallway perfectly to meet Joe coming in. "Christ, don't you look well turned out," Joe groused at him.

"I let my man dress me," Tony said and cracked up at Joe's face. "Where are we going anyway? Steegs office or the conference room?"

"Holy shit," a voice called out. "If it isn't the devil in a blue suit. Fucking Tony Grenier, looking good, man, looking good."

Tony turned around and stared. "Jesus. Pete de Silva, what the hell … oh, I get it." Tony transferred his coffee to his left hand, let his smile chase the shock from his face, and went to clasp hands with one of his oldest friends. They'd been on the Lions together as rookies even though Pete was two years older.

"Yeah, smart guy, Tony, I bet you get it. Joey, good to see you." Pete shook hands again. "We're meeting in the conference room, if you gentlemen ― well, one of you is a gentleman ― want to show me where the hell that is."

Joe took the lead and Tony followed along behind Pete, who had to be the new assistant to Steigler. He was built like Tony, had a slight resemblance born of dark hair, slightly olive skin and Portuguese grandparents as the equivalent of Tony's Italian half. He'd played a completely different game, hard, physical, dirty at times, and no finesse, but he saw the ice like it was drawn in his brain by a laser, and he had all the advantages of a Canadian kid growing up in Toronto and playing his whole life on the best teams. 

Tony had hated him at first and then loved him once he'd realized how well they could play together.

And by the time Tony was getting a divorce, getting caught by three players on his team with a guy in the back hallway of a dive bar, and dealing with all of that, Pete had moved on to greener pastures in California. He'd joined his second team's front office after he'd retired and he'd ended up as AGM there in record time. A move to the Lions looked like a lateral step until you remembered how old Steegs was.

Steegs was waiting in the conference room looking smugly proud of his coup. It was a coup. Pete was a rising star and the whole league knew it. To have the balls to bring in the man destined to replace you in that bold a way was impressive. "You guys already know what's going on then," Steegs said. "Graves is out. And he was a good man, an important part of this team, but it's time for new blood. We want to move on trade targets and win deals. Pete's the man for that."

Joe nodded and said all the right things while Tony sipped his coffee and thought through his little problem. Should he tell Pete about his relationship with Cally or did he already know?

"So gentlemen," Steegs said, "I dragged you here to see Pete today before we present him to the media because Nickerson is showing up here as well. But also, we need to redo some of what we talked about yesterday. I want Pete to hear it from you guys where you think things stand."

Steegs waved his hand at Pete, and he flashed a white smile in a tanned California face and said, "This team just got hit with a hell of a blow, and I'm barely on the job here. So I might be behind on my facts, but I want to know from you guys why you think our total focus shouldn't be keeping the playoff spot we've got and then making the deepest run we can?"

Pete said it forcefully, like a challenge, and Joe leaned back and sat very still. Joey the eraser could not be rattled by some asshole who liked to crash the net. Tony did the same, bringing his coffee to his lips and sipping slowly.

"Tony, why don't you answer that," Joe said blandly, and Tony flashed his teeth, all real, but not all perfectly straight or bright white. He used the exact bland tone he'd perfected to enrage a teenaged Andy and said, "You folding the team after this year?"

Steegs almost laughed. Pete's eyes flashed the deep black of an angry man, and then he shook his head. "Fucking Tony Grenier, never change. You always played like a man twice your size."

"I'm not playing," Tony said sharply. "I left the game-playing behind when I graduated out of PR, Pete. One, you need to look to your future. You can't turn your back on the Cubs, suck us dry and then wake up next fall and go, oh, shit, we got no prospects and no guys for the prospects to play with. Maybe in our day, the minors were full of a bunch of good Canadian boys who hit hard and did fuck all else, but that don't cut it now. Two, you know damn well, you make the Cubs into a shit team, and that shit flows uphill. Three, we're still a business, one you own part of, and shit teams don't make any money. They don't keep good coaches or other staff, and that kind of shit snowballs into a disaster it takes a lot of money and time to fix."

"You're still such a bigot, Tony. Holy fuck. Will you ever stop hating Canadians?"

"Depends on the Canadian," Tony said, deadpan as all hell, and Pete didn't make a flicker of indication that he got the joke. Tony looked over at Steegs, who was doing a very good impression of Joe. Shit.

"Fine, fine, you're not wrong either," Pete said, "We can't turn our backs, and we don't want to, but our priorities are dealing with the loss of McCallum and getting the Lions in the best possible position. To that end, I want you working with Nickerson, this Swedish guy, what the hell is his name anyway?"

"Jonas?" Tony said. "He's not Swedish, but I'll tell you right now he's not ready. Working with him and Nickerson is my job. But Joe tells me how to do my job. I realize we have a situation here, and it's all hands on deck, but I work for the Cubs. I work on all of the Cubs players for the betterment of the Cubs. And that means now, this year, and it also means the future, and that means guys that are your top prospects as highest priority."

"But?" Pete said.

"But not exclusively. I'm not your private coach to set on Jonas or Nickerson or those five guys you're going to pull for the playoffs."

"What five guys?" Pete asked.

Tony rhymed off their names and banged his coffee cup down, sick of the bullshit and showing it. "So I'm going to pay attention to all of them, and the team, how they fit in it. And yeah, Nickerson ahead of anyone right now sounds reasonable to me."

"So we're arguing about how much we agree?" Pete asked loudly.

"Likely," Tony answered him just as loudly.

"Nickerson might make the jump?" Pete asked in a calm tone.

"Sooner than Jonas," Tony said. "No promises."

"No, fine." Pete rubbed his forehead. "This would be a hell of a lot easier if Sean McCallum's brain hadn't cracked in half."

"Okay," Steegs said, standing up quickly. "Me and Joe here will go to my office and discuss some money issues that you gentlemen don't care about. Nickerson should arrive here in time for a double photo op at about eleven. Can you hang around and drive him back down to Bridgeport, Tony?"

"Yeah, sure. Soon as I'm done here, I'll call our office and set up the motel for him."

"Done with what?" Pete asked.

"You and me get to have a chat, that's why they're running for it," Tony said and pointed at the two men leaving quickly.

"What the hell is going on?" Pete demanded. He got up and slammed the door shut and sat down and said, "How the hell are you, Tony? You look a little stressed. And I don't remember you being this touchy before."

Tony grinned at him and got out some gum to chew. "I'm gay, Pete, is what I am. That's what Steegs wanted me to tell you. That's why he ran off."

"What?" Pete said, knocked back in his chair like he'd taken a hit.

"Come on, are you telling me you never heard a rumour?"

"I thought that was just talk. You know, 'cause you never got married again, and guys make up shit."

"It wasn't talk. Isn't. And I'm not single. That's the other half of this confession. The reason for it." Tony sat up and looked at Pete, tried to gauge his reaction, but he just looked shocked. "I'm going to tell you something, and it shouldn't be me doing it, but because of the situation, I don't see I have a choice. So here it is. Sean McCallum is my partner. We live together, have for a few years."

Pete stared at him, mouth open. Tony would take a picture if anything about the situation was actually funny. "Jesus, Tony, and you're sitting here riding my ass about the Cubs while we're trying to fill his skates. Jesus. How the hell are you? For real, Tony, for real, how are you doing?"

Tony shrugged, pleased that Pete hadn't become a total asshole when he'd put on a suit. "I'm okay most of the time."

"How is that possible? How is any of this possible?"

"It makes more sense if you meet him. He's here, having a physical right now, I think."

"Here," Pete said, pointing at the table. "Here in New Haven? I've met him already, Tony, at some alumni PR thing last year."

"He won't remember that."

"What? Like at all? That news conference was the straight story?"

"You want to meet him? I wouldn't mind being there. For his sake, maybe yours too."

"I yeah, he's having his medical? I'll, just let me find the right fucking number, here."

Tony watched Pete find the medical department's phone number on the conference room phone. He might be new on the job, but Tony would eat his own skates if he was only just in the office for the first time.

"Come on, they said he's waiting on the bike test."

"Lucky guy," Tony said, and got up and followed Pete down the hall. He knew his way around so that bit about finding the conference room had been a bunch of theatrical horseshit.

Cally was sprawled on a waiting room chair reading an airport thriller and bouncing his left leg. He had a bottle of something in his hand he was ignoring. "Cally," Tony said.

He looked up with a huge smile and then stood up when he saw Pete. He tossed the book aside and strode forward with his hand out. "Hi, I guess I get to meet someone new. I'm Cally, but you look like you know that."

Pete was slow to respond, so Tony said, "This is Pete de Silva, Cally, he's the new assistant to Mr Steigler. Graves isn't with the team anymore."

"Oh." Cally frowned. "I'm really pleased to meet you. I think you must have been a player. I'm getting better at telling that by looking, but I won't know anything about you, sorry."

"Yeah, me and Tony came up together," Pete said, reaching out finally to shake hands.

"Oh! Cool. I don't get to meet a lot of Tony's friends. It's a double pleasure then. So, you are the assistant to Mr Steigler?"

"Yeah, we're having the media announcement today. Wow, Cally, you look fine."

"I feel great," Cally said with enthusiasm. "The guys said this bike test is bad, but I can beat it. Or puke trying, I think is the saying. But I got to workout yesterday, and they said if I check out today, I can skate, so that will be awesome."

"And once you skate?" Pete asked.

"That's the tough question." Cally nodded once. "I don't know. I'll see how it goes. The trainers want me on a regular routine, and so do I, so that's our first job."

"I don't know what to say. How will you know if you can ever play again, and shit, man, that is a rude question."

Cally laughed, delighted. "No, it isn't. I think you likely care about that a lot now. I don't know. I say that a lot, and I usually tell people they need to get used to me saying that a lot. I think I want to be very comfortable on the ice, make sure I'm in shape, and then see how I do at basic skills. Then we'll go from there."

Pete nodded like that sounded good to him. It sounded good to Tony too, sensible and not too optimistic.

"Mr Milchuk said that he is going to give me to one of the assistants to assess me when the team is back," Cally said.

"Mr Milchuk," Pete said, in a tone of wonder. No one ever called him anything but Chucky, even people who hated him. "Okay, well, Cally, it was good to meet you, and I'm sure I'll see you again. Tony, can we continue where we left off?"

"Sure," Tony said and threw a wink over his shoulder at Cally.

Pete kept his thoughts to himself while they walked back to the conference room.

"First of all, holy shit, man, you can pick 'em."

Tony decided not to mention who had picked whom. He just smiled and sat down across from Pete. "Congratulations on this job, buddy. I'm a little surprised. A little not."

Pete grinned, pleased with himself. "I'd hit the ceiling out in California. A lateral move can be good for a career."

Tony took a deep breath and plunged into the career talk. "Okay, so I'm going to tell you something else, Pete, since we're friends and I respect you. Cally gets a fair shake. That's what I want. My first priority in my life is him. I can do my job ― I am doing my job, but when I leave the rink, he comes first right now. And what that means, Pete, is that he gets every chance to come back to your team if he is able to do it and he wants to do it."

"Okay. I hear you. Steegs told me you would say no if we made you an offer right now. I thought he was crazy, but I guess not. Are you sure about this, though, Tony? You're putting walls up to your own career advancement here."

"I am absolutely sure. We will see how it goes as he trains. He gets to decide."

"That's a hell of a lot to relearn," Pete said.

"I know." Cursing in Russian, Tony told himself, ping pong.

The conference room phone rang, and Pete took the call. "Nickerson is here early, and you and I can go meet him," he said when he'd hung up. "This is just the start. I'm going to put life back in this team, Tony. They will be a contender. And if this kid works out or not, we will remember it was you that was smart enough to spot his potential."

Tony followed Pete, not sure how much of that speech was real and how much was Pete pumping himself up to believe his lateral move had been smart and his new team was the best team.

Tony met Kevin Nickerson, who was huge in street clothes, and yet on the ice, he moved like a dream. They had Kevin do a quick interview with the team PR people which Tony coached him through, and then Tony loaded him in his car and drove him to Bridgeport.

"I haven't had a chance to call and get them to book you a motel room, but they'll do that quick. You won't be rooming with anyone since we don't have any guys in the motel right now."

"Oh, cool."

"Are you good with this trade, Kevin? Anything you want to ask or are worried about?"

"No, I'm fine. I'm hoping it works out and I can move up. I was real surprised by it, but I'm fine."

"Okay, good. If you have any issues or questions, you can ask me. Talk to the captain or one of the older guys about anything, they're good guys. Craig is a busy guy ― coach Craig. But Sandy, the second assistant, has time for everyone. See if you can get to know him fast."

"Okay."

"If this were camp, we'd be spending a lot of time together. In the fall, I go on the ice with the guys every day, get to know everyone, work with them, find out what special training or help they should get. But it's not camp, and I don't want you lost in the shuffle."

Tony pulled into his usual spot and waited for Kevin to load up with his bags. Tony pointed down the street. "The motel is right over there two blocks, so get a car if you want, but you don't need to hurry on that. Your usual entrance is around the other side of the building, but I'll bring you in through the office, and I bet you ten bucks someone will stop us and make us do paperwork." 

Kevin laughed, and Tony grinned at him. Poor kid, he'd learn.

Tony stopped and got the receptionist to book the motel, and they were not ten feet down the hallway to Tony's office when Clarice stuck her head out of her door and demanded forms be filled out.

"Ten bucks, kid," Tony said, holding out his hand.

"No way!"

"Yeah, you didn't call no bet, so ten bucks." Tony waggled his fingers.

Kevin paid up, and Tony smacked his gum and smirked. "Welcome to the wrong side of the bridge, kid. Bring your gear to my office when you're done."

He spent the rest of the day running around sorting out Nickerson. He bought him lunch with his own ten bucks. He talked to all the guys who were around, and he arranged to spend some time with Nickerson, Jonas and three other guys after practice was over. The five of them made up a unit of sorts, with two left wingers and two right-handed defenders, but they worked on some specifics of defensive and transition play that a usual practice overlooked in favour a lot of shots at the goaltenders.

Tony was exhausted by the time he was done, but he went to the trainers and checked to see they had gym time.

"You haven't been around much, Tony," the head conditioning coach chided.

"Nope, setting a bad example. Now I'm setting the example of what happens when you let it go."

"Don't overdo it."

"Yup, learned that lesson when you were in novice."

He was sore after, and he still had work to do. He figured Joe would want to chew over the day at some point too.

Cally sent him a text in the middle of the afternoon. "This being driven around is cool."

"On your way home?" Tony replied.

"I asked the driver if she had time to show me around. We're pretending I'm a tourist. Looking at a things. We're in Bridgeport almost. It was fun. Want to see it all without the snow. Love you, bye."

Tony rubbed his face and looked at the time. The temptation to go home was strong, but he stuck it out and even had a drink with Joe before they both left. Joe was enthusiastic about Pete coming on board, and Tony was too, up to a point. Pete looked after Pete first, and everyone else second, but that was to be expected.

Tony walked into his house, later than he'd wanted to be, to the sound of music playing. He tracked Cally down in his office. Tony's old stereo was pumping out high volume in the living room and it sounded like a locker room playlist made by someone half his age.

"Tony!" Cally said, standing up. "My laptop came! I had a great workout! And, I got to skate today."

Cally was alight with happiness, and Tony just opened his arms and let himself be overtaken by the force of his joy. Tony's pounding heart blended into the pounding techno until he felt like he was floating in a sea of noise. It was loud enough to drown out Pete's voice in his ear talking about career advancement and lateral moves.


	14. Chapter 14

Cally had a routine. He drew Tony out of bed too early with the smell of food cooking, and if anyone complained, they got a lecture on the benefits of a hot breakfast. 

Once Cally had the household up and fed, he went to his daily driving lesson. The car service driver the team had found for him had offered to teach him, and she seemed to be patient enough to deal with the constant surprise of the simple things Cally didn't know and the complex things he did.

Cally would detour to the Bridgeport arena after the lesson to skate with Jonas if he was around, or Cally would just work out alone if the Cubs were out of town. His driver would wait and take him to New Haven for a workout and occasional medical evaluation. He was home in the mid afternoon, long before Tony was done for the day, even on off days for the Cubs.

If it was the weekend, Cally would set up his laptop in the kitchen, and he'd hang out via Skype with his mom and cook something. If it was a weekday, he cooked to a blaring techno beat.

Tony was in the best shape of his life, post-retirement. He was eating an elite training diet and working out as often as he could. Cally kept telling him it would help with stress, and he was right. It also set the right example for the Cubs players, and Tony thought they were showing more effort themselves.

They had met with Cally's agent, whose opinion was they should keep a low profile and emphasize Cally's training regimen to the press if they got a chance. They had met with Tony's lawyer who updated their paperwork and made notarized copies of the report on Cally's competence in case they ever needed them.

Tony had a routine too. He worked with his small group of five guys every day until first Nickerson and then one of the defencemen were called up to the Lions. Tony replaced them with two new guys from the Cubs, but they weren't as effective to practice with. Tony had come to the conclusion that Jonas was getting more out of the time he spent fooling around with Cally playing one on one than he was with his teammates. Jonas wasn't progressing.

"I'm not progressing."

Tony looked up from the laptop he'd sneaked onto the breakfast table against Cally's rules and said, "It's only been a couple of weeks."

"I'm getting more from Jonas than I do from the Lions coaches. They don't have time for me."

Tony rubbed his face and considered again the idea he'd had more than once to ask if Cally could join his practice group, but that wasn't what was right for his group. They needed fresh blood, but they needed a better guy to aim for, not a project to work on.

Cally set aside whatever he was cooking and marched off to answer the doorbell that Tony only belatedly realized he'd heard. Cally had given his laptop a hard look on the way by.

"It's for me," Cally said, excited, striding back into the kitchen. He had a package under his arm and was studying the packing slip that had come with it. "Maybe Eileen bought me something." He ripped open the package and exclaimed immediately. Tony leaned back and watched Cally's face as he pulled out item after item from the package. Tony knew what it was; he didn't need to look to see the bright colours ― blue, red, purple, and the horrible acid green Cally loved.

"Oh my god, oh my god. It's like a bowl of candy, only it's shirts! Some are long sleeves too. I love them." He snapped a bright blue one out to look at it and then yanked his shirt off over his head and tried the new one on. It was perfectly tight, almost rippling over his abs and his pecs.

"Fits good," Tony said, and Cally looked up at him and struck a pose.

They were both laughing when Tony stood up to kiss him. Tony stole the chance to feel him up in the tight and bright blue. "Do you like your present?"

"I love it, Tony. You got this for me?"

"I was tired of your two happy shirts. You needed a whole week's worth."

"Tony," Cally pulled away and looked almost upset. "Tony, this is so wonderful. This is the best present I've ever had, and I love you so much."

"Babe, babe. I love you as much. More." Tony was a little alarmed at how emotional Cally seemed over such a simple gift, but the clouds never covered the sun for long with him.

"I want to get you something now," he said brightly. "I'll have to think about it, though. Figure out the perfect thing."

"You gave me the perfect thing, babe. You gave me you."

"Awww. That's sweet, Tony," he said almost absently. "I'm still buying you something." He pulled the blue shirt back off and handed it over. "Okay, cut off the tags on this so I can wear it," he instructed, "and I will cook your breakfast for you."

They were eating the meal ― omelettes stuffed with vegetables, and Cally sighed and said, "So, I meant what I said. I'm not progressing."

"No, I know. I honestly don't know what to tell you. It's going to get worse because the timing here is terrible. The Lions will be bringing up guys in the next week, they'll be working all out, and so will we."

"I'm in the way," Cally said.

Tony tried to brush that idea away. "Not like that, you're just ― if it was late summer, it would be perfect."

"But right now, I'm in the way, and they'd be happier if I got out of their hair. Wait, calling up guys in the next week? So that means this trade deadline thing is over, right, that's how it works?"

"Yeah, that's the way it goes."

"So then there's six weeks to playoffs."

"I need to start going on road trips with the Cubs," Tony said.

Cally looked up and frowned. "Have you been holding back because of me?"

"No, not really, babe, but I haven't put in the hours I normally would. I wanted to be with you. To be honest, it's hard being away from you."

"Because you don't think I can look after myself?" Cally said, voice rising.

"No, stupid, because I love you. Jesus."

"Oh," Cally said and grinned, silly and sheepish. "Oh, yeah."

"But I will be away a lot."

"I have my driving test soon, and then, I was sort of thinking something. I'm not sure if you'll like the idea."

"Try me," Tony said warily.

"I've never been anywhere but New Haven. What if I set up that longer meeting with my agent we keep putting off and find one of those second opinion doctors and go to New York to have some tests? I want to see if I can handle that on my own."

Tony's immediate impulse was to demand to go with him, make sure everything went okay. But Cally was a man, a man who needed to show he was capable to his team and maybe even himself, so he swallowed that and said, "I don't see why not. Normally, babe, you would just get your manager to sort all that out for you, but if you want a test of yourself, make the arrangements. As for this second opinion. What do you expect out of it?"

Cally shrugged. "Nothing. I've talked to all the doctors here and I've done a lot of reading up on this, and lots of people have tried all sorts of memory therapy and experimental drugs and, nothing. There was this one thing where they put electrodes in people's brains and it worked once and then it didn't. No one knows how to fix this."

Tony decided to just ignore electrodes in brains. That was not a thing he wanted to think about. "So why go?"

"To make sure I'm right about this, that I am me now and always will be me. I just want that decided. And I want to have something I can show my dad."

"Yeah, I get that. How's that going, anyway? Your parents?"

Cally made a face and dug into his breakfast. "Mom and I have fun. She said some stuff that makes me think we didn't before. And Dad, he ― she said, I have to give him time to adjust."

"I don't know how I'd take it, babe, if I were in his shoes. I feel for the man a hell of a lot."

Cally looked up, frowned, and then nodded. "But he makes you mad. I'm getting better at telling when you're trying hard to see both sides and being all reasonable, and I think you're doing that."

"Well, fuck yeah, he makes me mad. But he's your dad. He's your family. If he's the price of you, I'll pay it ten times over."

"Well, okay," Cally said, voice rising again. "You can tell me that, though. You can tell me that he makes you mad and stuff. I get it."

"I just don't see the point, though. Why go on about it?"

"Because he says stuff that makes me mad, and I want to fucking yell about it sometimes."

"Okay," Tony said, trying not to laugh.

"What? What the hell is so funny?"

"Just you, being loud and angry while wearing that shirt. I don't know. You make me happy. Even when you're angry, you're something special."

Cally sat up straight and beamed at him. He was proud of himself, and he took compliments without any self-deprecation. He could seem arrogant at times, but Tony wanted that for him always, that kind of pride. He was a good man; he had a right to it.

Cally obsessed over his trip to New York. He admitted he was overdoing it, and made fun of himself, but it drove home to Tony how much time Cally had on his hands to fill.

Tony had none or nearly none. His gang of players ebbed and flowed around Jonas, and Tony started relying on him more and more to communicate the ideas he was trying to get across to the new guys.

Jonas said to him one day, "This is interesting, Tony, that having to explain something makes me understand it better. This is a smart idea you had."

"It wasn't a smart plan, Jonas. I'm just too sick of the sound of my own voice. If it's helping you, that's an accident."

"I do not believe you, but okay, I can pretend. These new ones, they are the right guys for me to perfect the simple game with."

Tony was tired. It took him way too long to realize Jonas had exquisitely insulted their new recruits. "They are who they are."

"This is true of us all."

"If we're lucky, we'll get some college kids in here in a couple of weeks and then we'll have a different kind of chaos."

"What kind of luck would give us that? Good luck or bad?"

"Not sure, Jonas," Tony said.

The Cubs went on road trips and climbed a notch up the standings as some of their simple players began to catch onto the system. Tony came home and tried to have something left to give to Cally, some part of himself that he could turn on and tune into his life outside of the team. But the laptop got more of his attention than was good for anyone.

Cally scheduled his New York trip to coincide with a roadie Tony was going on. It meant Tony didn't miss him as much, and it left him too busy to worry and too tired when Cally came home the same evening Tony did to listen properly to Cally's account of his time in Manhattan.

"Babe," he said the next morning. "Tell me about your trip again?"

Cally rolled his eyes and said, "I've been thinking about it, so I'll tell you different stuff. The neurologist, Doctor Franzel, I think he was trying to say things without saying them. You know how much I hate that, but, he said the MRI showed what the last one showed, that the damage is real and they can't just operate or something. That part was just telling me what I knew. But he talked about therapy, psychiatrists, like there was something he wanted me to understand. I don't know if I did."

"What did he say?" Tony asked.

"He said a lot of stuff, but he said that with brain injury cases, sometimes the therapist will take it too far and will try to lead a patient to recovery, that was one phrase he used. He talked about seeing what you want to see, and I said, because I worry about this, I said, 'What if I'm doing that?'" Cally frowned and stirred up his eggs on his plate. "I said, 'What if I just want to be a new person, and I'm keeping memories from coming back so I can do that?'"

"You worry about that?" Tony asked, dropping his fork.

"Sort of. Sort of." Cally made a face that Tony couldn't read. Frustration or uncertainty. "I do remember things. How to skate, how to make eggs. I know how to love you. I forget things, and maybe it's convenient what I forget."

Tony wanted to know who the hell had given him that worry. Josh, maybe. "So what did he say?"

"He said that maybe it doesn't matter What if I have a brain injury and I have psychological effects and it's all one thing?"

"I don't get it," Tony said.

"That's what I said! And he said it's like having something wrong with your body. He said, 'Say you rip up your knee playing hockey, and that hurts, but you also can't play and you're bored and you feel like less of a man suddenly, and that hurts too. Which is which? What's the physical pain and what's the psychological effect of the pain?'"

"Yeah, okay, that I get."

"I don't. Explain it to me."

"When my shoulder was fucked up ― years ago ― it made everything worse. Everything else that was going wrong in my life. I was irritable and angry and bored. Very bored. I, um, well, I fucked around a lot."

Cally laughed at him. "Your face is all red. Why are you embarrassed? You're good at sex, so I bet you made some guys happy."

Tony shook his head. "For a very short time, sure. But that all got mixed up in my head into one thing ― my shoulder, not playing, how I felt about myself, about sex."

Cally nodded like he understood, but Tony wasn't so sure. Cally had no memories of ever feeling like less of a man for wanting to fuck other men. "Anyway, he said that if I like who I am now, if I'm healthy and happy and not doing anything that's bad for me or for anyone else, maybe I should relax and not worry about it. Then he said the total opposite. He said maybe I should talk to a good psychiatrist about it because he doesn't like most of them, so maybe he was giving me bad advice. He said to be careful though because he's had patients with undiagnosed things like tumours who spent a long time in therapy and it only made them worse. So I don't know. Tony, I don't know what to do."

Tony didn't either. "You are healthy. You are okay as you are. But, you said you wanted to talk about things, not that you want to find your memories or whatever, but that you wanted to talk about what you don't understand."

"Yeah. I've been thinking about that, too. Franzel said to me that I should be very careful that I don't fall in with some doctor who thinks what's really wrong with me is being gay."

Tony went back to his eggs. Breakfast, he could just about cope with. "Babe. This is over my head, so we have two choices. You either do nothing until you feel like you know what you need, or you go find someone who is smarter than me to talk about this with."

"I like the do nothing idea," Cally said promptly like he'd already decided this. "I asked Franzel, I said, 'What if I just wait a bit and see who I am, see how my life turns out?' And he thought that made sense."

Tony was relieved and guilty for the relief. He had no time to help Cally find a therapist or to help him with the therapy. "I have to go in early today," he said.

"Yeah, I know," Cally said with a smile. "I'm going to skate, workout, and then I'm going to go to a store and look for a picture for the wall in my office."


	15. Chapter 15

Tony went in to work early most days. The Cubs were holding the third spot in their division and were looking forward to playoffs if the wheels didn't fall off. They weren't going to go deep if they didn't get better quick, though.

Pete sent Tony a text one morning that read, "Sending you a guy, tell me in a couple days what you think."

An hour later Joe sent him the proper memo saying the Lions had signed a guy on a try-out deal and he was reporting to the Cubs that afternoon.

Five minutes after that, Joe came into his office and said, "I don't know if I like this hands-on approach."

Tony looked at Joe who was sitting in the chair of shame, as the players called it. Jonas sat there a lot. Joe looked disgruntled and annoyed and also maybe a little out of sorts. Jonas always looked blandly pleasant. "You liked being left alone," Tony said. "So do I, but I don't think we get to go back to the Graves years ever again."

Joe glared at him for a minute and then deflated. "No. Who is this guy we're getting, do you know?"

"No clue, Joey, and I've got a new attitude. I take it as it comes, and I don't look up who these guys supposedly are. Open mind. That kid they tried, the defenceman? He sounded like a peach on the scouting report and you saw what he did on the ice."

"Shit," Joe said sourly. "He was pure shit."

"Yeah, so, this guy who I'm calling New Kid in my mind, is nothing until he shows me he's something. Craig can read the fucking scouting reports. That's his job anyway."

"Tony," Joe said with a groan. "We are not having the Craig conversation until after the season."

"Fine. And we have to have it with Pete anyway. Okay, when is New Kid showing up?"

The kid, not really a kid, since he was a bona fide American college graduate who was 23 years old, showed up that afternoon. He was unimpressive in the extreme. He had an okay shot that would not get him much in the pros, he was tough enough, strong enough, but not exceptional, and his skating was average. He was average. He was exactly six feet tall, not quite 200 lbs, he had sandy brown hair, a bland face and his name turned out to be Jimmy. It should have been Jimmy Smith, but it was actually some string of consonants the guys making the jerseys needed two tries to get right.

Tony watched Jimmy in practice expecting nothing and slowly realized that average Jimmy had not done one stupid rookie thing. He didn't miss with his passes, he was never out of position, he wasn't too slow, he wasn't inattentive. He never made a mistake. He was very boring. And he never made a mistake.

Craig didn't know what to do with him. He came into Tony's office and said, "Why is this guy here? How is a guy who can't score helping us any?"

Tony considered his options. Telling Craig how to do his job was not Tony's job. But he couldn't see how a session of trying to convince Craig that Jimmy was useful for all the things he didn't do was going to be productive. Tony laid on a bored tone and said, "Throw him in the deep end for a game if you think there's nothing there. Put him out with your top guys."

"My top guys are in New Haven, but sure, why the hell not. We're not going to get knocked out of our playoff spot with one bad game."

"Gotta give it a whole game, though. I'll talk to Pete after, give him a full report on the kid."

Tony went to the game the next afternoon. They had a late-season schedule mess where they played at home on the Saturday afternoon and had to get on the bus to upstate New York for a Sunday afternoon game to make up for one that got called on account of snow back in January. He wasn't going to even get a chance to go home after the Saturday game. He did remember to text Cally before the game started to tell him that.

Tony sat up in the section of the press box for the team staff. Pete had found an assistant who he sent to every game now, which Graves had never done, and this new guy had two young and eager fellows who came with him and typed into laptops all game long. The Cubs contingent had gone from a small group to a crowd. Tony chewed gum and listened to them chatter. They were not Graves' sort of guys. Tony wasn't sure they were his sort either.

He took off right at the horn when the game was done to go to his office and get his own gear together. He had to wait for the bus that was going to roll out in its own time whenever the players were ready, so he typed up his thoughts on the game, grinning at his own cleverness for talking Craig into putting average Jimmy on the top line.

Since he had time, more than he needed, and he'd been sitting on his ass too much, he hit the gym, bypassing the players, the three reporters who bothered with the Cubs and the usual gaggle of trainers, equipment guys and PR assistants who were always hanging around.

He was amped up from the workout by the time the bus left so he did some more work while most of the players were watching movies or sleeping.

Craig kept Jimmy in the next game, and he was exactly the same ― no mistakes, nothing exciting ― and they won the game on the strength of a goal Jimmy had no points on but still made happen. Tony just had to hope Craig would keep on putting Jimmy in the lineup without an intervention.

Tony got back home on Sunday night so late it was nearly morning, and he crawled into bed, soaked up Cally's body heat, and was out cold before he even knew if he'd woken Cally up.

By the time he rolled out of bed on Monday, Cally was gone.

There was a pile of sausage-stuffed biscuits on the counter and a note that told him how to heat them up that read like maybe Cally figured Tony had never seen a microwave before.

Tony ate four with his second cup of coffee. And he had no one to tell him not to work at the table, so he did. He was so caught up on his reports after breakfast, he was already planning to leave work early that day before he ever even left home. Technically, the front office staff, which Tony technically was a part of, didn't work Mondays after a weekend on the road, but they were only two weeks from the playoffs, so he went in every day.

By mid-morning, he was feeling smug about being on top of his paperwork, so he decided another hour in the gym would help him keep up with Cally, who was somehow getting even more ripped as his training progressed. Tony came back from the gym, damp around the edges and feeling good about life, to find Pete de Silva sitting in the chair of shame doodling on his phone.

"Pete, you should have got someone to find me," Tony said.

"Naw, I had shit to wade through. Tons of emails like always. How the hell are you? You look good."

Tony sat down and leaned back in his chair. "Stretch drive grind is still tough even when you ride a chair, not the bench."

"Like you were ever fucking benched," Pete scoffed. "So, Tony, tell me about the guy I sent you."

Tony grinned at Pete and let his chair snap up so he could get some gum from his desk drawer. He fiddled with the package and then said, "He's average in every way except the number of zees in his last name. Plus he can't score a goal to save his life." He popped a stick of gum in his mouth and concentrated on chewing it.

Pete looked a little deflated, but he was an old, old friend, and he was wise to Tony's tricks. "And?" he said after he'd glared for a long beat through Tony's bland expression.

"And he's perfect. Fucking perfect. He'll never seem like it, but he's exactly what we needed, short of somebody who can actually score a fucking goal. So, full marks to whichever of your clever boys with their computers told you to get him, they were right."

"Will Craig play him where he needs to be?"

"Not my problem," Tony told him promptly. "I've written my report, which Craig is likely way too busy to read. So have your guys, I'm guessing, sent you an email full of their numbers. But I'm a team player, Pete, so at a good moment, I'll tell Craig that the guy is useful and should be played up. He'll want to fourth-line him."

"Will he listen?" Pete asked like it was nothing to him and they were just bullshitting over a beer.

"Maybe. I'll have to approach him right. But again, Pete, it's not my problem. Craig does not report to me, and I can go put a bug in Joey's ear ― I will do that ― but if they see it different, nothing I can do." Tony shrugged like none of that mattered to him.

"I'd like to change that," Pete said.

Tony sighed. He'd walked right into that. "What are you talking about?"

"I've got Willie overseeing the Cubs now, in concert with Joey, of course, and that's how it always should have been. I want you to be overseeing Willie."

Tony froze and tilted his head. Willie was Pete's new assistant, the wonderboy in charge of the wonderboys with the laptops. This was no PR job Pete was talking about. "What does that mean, Pete?"

"I want you to work for me, not Joe. I want you to be my guy who runs player development and I want Willie to report to you. I want to clone Willie and have him and a team working on the Lions who report to you. It's a shitload more money, Tony. Not the bullshit Joe pays you."

"You know I don't need your money, Pete," he said to stall. Cally came first. Cally's chance came first.

"I know you want it, though."

Which was true. He wanted the recognition. He wanted a real hockey job. He wanted Tony Grenier, faggot floater of a goal scorer and low-class American, to be the man who called the shots and made his old team great again. This was a step towards that job. This was a step towards Pete's job when Steegs retired. Cally came first. "You know why I gotta say no, too," Tony said.

Pete groaned. "Bullshit. Bullshit, Tony. You can have this gig. And to be clear, I'm talking off-season not right now. And we ― the Lions ― we'll give Cally a fair shake."

Tony could feel the curl of want in his belly. He wanted to just say yes before Pete could change his mind or come to his senses. "What's the catch?" he said.

"There is no catch. Fuck, Tony, you and me, we go way back, and you figured out Jimmy whatever the fuck his name is without two computers and fucking I don't know what else. I want you on my team. I will never not want you on my team."

Tony rubbed his face and glared at Pete. "And the price is Cally, right? The price for this gig is that Cally quietly goes away and you pay his salary out of insurance."

"Whoa. Hold the fucking phone, Tony. No way. No way in hell." Pete looked honestly irate, but then Tony had seen Pete look honestly innocent after he'd speared a guy in the gut too. "I talked to Cally. I talk to Cally almost every day, in fact. He's a breath of fresh air. He says that he does not know if he can come back, and I'm taking him at his word. If we can get him back on our team next season, that's gravy for me. And that is not something I'm turning down."

"Which would leave me where?"

"Explain this to me, Tony, what the hell you mean. I don't get your concern here."

"I mean, Pete, that I don't think you'd put me in your front office if I was just fucking one of your players. I know you won't if I'm living with one."

Pete grimaced in distaste and then frowned down at the floor. The most examined piece of carpet in the whole building, Tony thought. "I'm not going to say it's a non-issue. I'm not going to bullshit you. But I trust you, and we can make an arrangement where you have no decision making over Cally's usage."

Tony blew out a breath. If Pete hadn't even given a thought to what it would mean for Cally to come back if Tony was working for the Lions, then Pete assumed Cally was never coming back. That's what it sounded like to Tony, but he wasn't sure.

"Weirdest fucking job interview ever, Tony," Pete said into the silence.

"I didn't apply," Tony snapped at him. "I am going to do my job, Pete. I'm going to run my non-existent department here for Joe, and I'm going to see this team through the playoffs and then I'm taking some time off to be with my family."

"Okay. Is that a yes or a no?"

"It's neither," he said, ignoring all the voices in his head screaming at him to take it now before the deal was off the table. "You think it over, Pete. You decide if you want to make this deal. If you do, I'm siccing my agent on you and he will negotiate a contract that will make you hate us both."

Pete grinned at him like he'd won, and that made Tony really scared. If Pete had thought just getting Tony to not say no was a win, then what was his next trick? What temptations was he going to offer to get a yes?


	16. Chapter 16

Willie and his computer boys came to every Cubs game down the stretch. They never stopped working their laptops.

Tony was there every night and took notes on paper sometimes, just jotted reminders, and then he'd go back to his office or home or the motel or the bus and he'd type up what he thought mattered from the game.

He was primarily focused on Jonas, Jimmy and a few other guys ― mostly the parade of try-outs that flashed in and out of the lineup one at a time. He wrote up their status, their improvement, his thoughts on their future, and he kept his own records up to date and sent off reports to Joey and Craig. 

He never saw what Willie was producing, and he assumed Pete wasn't getting copied on Tony's reports to Joe. Pete was running a parallel system of management, and as would be obvious to anyone who thought about it, that wasn't going to last. No team would pay for what their affiliate was already doing, and the Lions already paid the Cubs to manage their players.

The Lions did not own enough of the Cubs to tell them how to manage the rest of their team, the Cubs' own players. But who called the shots on a try-out signing was always a grey area. In the past, the Lions had left them alone to sort it all out. But, the past was dead and gone, and when they came home from their road trip, Tony expected another meeting with Pete.

They were in some nothing town in New Hampshire, overnighting in the usual cheap motel, before they drove on to Rhode Island for another game before swinging back home. It was their last regular season trip that was more than just a game there and back. The team meal after the afternoon practice had been in a cheap chain restaurant, and it was burning a hole in Tony's gut. Naturally, the cure for that was beer. Like any small town in America, there was a bar decently close to the motel.

Tony sat at the half empty bar, ignored the tables behind him and the spring training baseball on the television, and ordered a beer. He sent Cally some texts and laughed at his replies. Tony missed him. He wanted time with him. He wanted to make sure Cally wasn't running too fast for him to catch up with when the playoffs were over.

"Hey, um, Tony?"

He swung around on the barstool and tried to look happy to see Willie a few feet away. "Willie, how are you. Closest joint in town, I guess?"

"Yeah, only one you can see from the motel, anyway. Seemed too sleazy for players."

Tony laughed, not caring if he was being a little rude. "Oh, Willie, Willie, no. There is no bar too sleazy for hockey players. The guys will be in one, I can tell you, but it won't be in sight of the motel. That's what team veterans are for, to tell the cabbies where to go."

"Yeah? I guess there's gotta be some perks on the road in this league. Um, we've got a table if you want to sit with us."

"Sure, Willie. I'll just get this beer changed over for something colder, and I'll join you."

Tony tried to drum up some willingness to be sociable while he waited for the beer.

Willie's two-man crew were kids, or they seemed it to Tony. Maybe it was how small they were when he was used to being around players. Andy was bigger than both of them. Patty was bigger than the smallest. He was a quiet kid named Jay, and the other one was a frat boy sort called Mike who smirked at everything. Mike liked to challenge everything Tony said, and he seemed to expect to get an argument. Tony gave up on him, sipped his beer and texted rude comments to Cally.

"No girls here," Mike said. "Waitress is hot, but I bet she's got some guy. They always do, and a place like this, they won't go and fuck in the back room."

"Maybe it's you," Tony said before he could stop himself.

"What?" Mike said.

"Maybe they lie and tell you they've got a boyfriend and don't fuck in the back room just to you." Tony looked up at him and frowned critically. "Kid, I outgrew all that when I was a lot younger than you, and I was a fucking case of arrested development like you've never seen." None of that was remotely true, but Tony could sell it. He'd been absurdly too old for it the last time he'd fucked a guy in a bar bathroom.

Mike had nothing to say to his critique, but Jay was going to explode from holding in the laughter. Willie changed the subject to hockey. Tony tried not to die of boredom.

"Guys," Tony said, interrupting their conversation, "what's that called, that thing where you cook stuff in a plastic bag? I ate that in some fucking place in Manhattan that cost me my left nut. But it tasted fantastic."

"You mean sous-vide," Jay said quietly.

Tony looked at him sharply. "Is that French?"

"Yeah, um, it is."

"Like European or Canadian?" Tony scowled at the kid. He wasn't exactly sure why he'd decided to try to terrify them all, but it was something to do. The reason most hockey players did stupid shit was because it was something to do.

"European I think," Jay said.

"Okay, then. I fucking hate Canadians."

Jay sat up and opened his mouth and then paused and frowned. He closed his mouth, and then he tilted his head and opened it again.

Tony waited and watched to see which half of his brain would win the fight.

"Does Sean McCallum know that?" Jay finally said, and then bravely didn't duck under Tony's gaze.

Tony grinned at the kid, delighted that he was the smart one, the brave one. He flicked a glance at Mike who looked puzzled, and then took a sip of beer. "Maybe a better question is does Pete de Silva know it," Tony said. "Ain't much he doesn't, though."

"Did you know you had the highest points pace of your career when you were on the ice with him?" Jay said. "Like it's not even close, and normally, we don't look at points all that much, but the anomaly is striking. Really unusual to see a difference like that, and it's not like you were bad the rest of the time."

"Pete wasn't all that great," Tony said.

"No," Jay enthused. "No, that's why it's so interesting. He wasn't great, but he had to have been exactly right for you."

"Are you saying Pete de Silva is my soulmate, kid?"

Jay burst out laughing, a happy sound, not the disdainful kind his friend Mike traded in. "Yes!"

"Tell me why," Tony said, in the same all business tone he'd use on Jonas when Jonas had worn his nerves down.

"Oh, um," Jay said, frowning at his beer. "It's hard to know for sure, but the data suggests he passed well and likely made zone entries really well. You guys played your last year together in the period where we have shot location, so it's a lot of extrapolating back, but you shot at such a high rate, and he must have fed into that. I have a theory that you were a faster skater than him so you crossed the line together, but the opposing D was timing to you, and he would end up high with no one one him. I've only looked at some video, so I'm not sure if that wasn't a tactic for when he was getting older before the trade, but ― "

"Kid," Tony interrupted, "I'm sitting right here. You could ask me."

"Oh, um, yeah. To be honest, uh, Tony, the numbers don't lie."

"Jay!" Tony said, mockingly. "Hockey players don't lie. We just remember the good days more than the bad."

"Yes, that's what I mean, Tony. Everyone does that."

Tony didn't tell Jay that he'd figured that out on his own without a computer, but he was tempted. He said, "Pete was always slow. But he saw the game, kid. That's what it's about. Not just speed and can you pass the puck, it's do you pass it smart. Do you make good choices. And Pete, he could haul my ass out of trouble when I did something stupid. He could make the other guys go where he wanted them to go. All I had to do was stop scratching my ass long enough to shoot it. Easy. Every guy like me needs a guy like Pete, so you're right, we were meant to be."

Jay looked a little stunned by his speech, but Willie was spinning his phone on the table, like maybe he wanted to start texting and tell Pete every word Tony had said. Tony glanced at Mike, who looked disgruntled, and then he wrote the text he'd been thinking about to Cally asking him if he knew about sous-vide, and did he want to try cooking something that way.

Tony got no answer, so he looked at the time and shook his head. "Old man like me should be in bed, boys."

Tony headed over to his coat he'd hung up by the bar and turned to find Willie standing the safe three feet away again. Tony continued patting down his pockets looking for gum and fussed over it when he found it.

"Jay's a good guy," Willie said.

"Cute too," Tony said, "I bet the women that think Mike is a sack of shit go for him all the time."

Willie laughed, a little uncomfortable, a little like he agreed. "Mike is good at his job."

"I'd have to take your word for that, wouldn't I?" Tony said, just to see what Willie would say.

"Is this the problem? That Pete put us in place on this team, and it's your turf?"

"Is there a problem?"

"You don't seem all that happy to see us," Willie said.

Tony nodded. He chewed his gum. "True. Jay's right, you know. Me and Pete, that was a special thing. And I love him like the other half of my heart on the ice. But he's not my boss, Willie, he's yours. And no one who is my boss ever got consulted on you and your boys moving in on us. You are not on our team, and maybe that is a turf thing, but don't scoff at that Willie-boy, because every one of us fucks running this business you're in now are old hands at playing team politics."

"I'm not scoffing. I ―"

"Willie-boy, you did come onto my turf ― me and the rest of the staff that sits up top in cold, boring arenas in the middle of fuck-all nowhere ― and you came in like you owned the place. Maybe you do. Maybe us dumb shits are just yokels that don't know no better." Tony was actually pissed off, not faking it anymore, and he wasn't really sure why. He wasn't going to stop long enough to think it over; that's not how the game was played.

"I don't think that's what we did," Willie said.

"No, no. Your sort never do. There's rules on a team. Rules about how cocky the rooks are allowed to be. Most of that is fucking bullshit, I'm free to tell you now that I don't have to live with it anymore. Not all of it is bullshit, though. If you try to strut in ―" Tony grinned, thinking of his man, and suddenly not giving a shit about Willie or Pete or team politics. "You strut in like that, there better be something between your legs once you're inside."

Tony turned and left, catching sight of Willie's mildly baffled face, not sure himself if that had been a really gay sex joke or not. If Willie-boy had been smart, he'd have punched Tony in the nose the first time he'd called him by that name. He was going to have to learn not to be so fucking affable if he was going to jump into middle management in hockey at his age.

The Cubs played their game the next day, and the team must have found a bar the night before. They stank, figuratively at least. Tony avoided the locker room as much as possible. Maybe they stank worse that usual there too.

He tossed his pen down and sat with his arms crossed watching the mess on the ice from up high in the cold, boring arena. He was looking for who had their heads out of their asses in the second period after they were obviously beat. The answer seemed to be Jimmy and Jonas. One of those was not a surprise. Tony started to pay closer attention and found his pen again to make notes.

They were both good, solid, fairly unimaginative players. They hadn't spent any time on the same line yet because Craig still had Jonas down in his mind as a skilled guy who could carry the offence, and Jimmy was supposed to be helping the second line be better.

The second intermission gave Tony time to find something to eat and to stretch his legs. He eavesdropped on a couple of scouts and the press for the home team, and then checked his phone. Cally had gone quiet, which was odd.

The game ended, mercifully, without anything happening in the third period that was worth noticing, and Tony had time to kill. He found a spot to type up his notes, and he was still working on it when Willie and the boys wandered by. Jay waved at him, and Tony nodded.

"I, uh, thought that game was interesting," Jay said, coming closer. Mike made a noise of derision which Tony ignored. Willie stopped to watch them.

"It was a clusterfuck," Tony said. "But educational."

"We're showing a significant improvement in Jonas's numbers," Jay said, in a way that implied he agreed with the educational part at least.

Willie frowned and opened his mouth, and then shut it.

"Don't worry, Willie, I don't want to hear about your secret numbers," Tony said. "We have a technical term for the process Jonas is going through in his development, Jay. It's called getting your head out of your ass and realizing you have a lot to learn."

Jay, to Tony's surprise, nodded seriously. "Second year of university you get that a little, and then graduate school is like, whoa, I'm a dumbass."

"And then you get a job, and what happens?" Tony asked. "Serious question, kid, because my oldest is not going to make millions playing hockey, but he's got more brains than me."

"Depends on the job. Mostly you just realize everything you hated about school is now a permanent part of your life that's trying to crowd out everything you loved. How, uh, how old is he?"

"He just turned 20, and he's in his second year at Yale."

"Oh, wait, Andrew Grenier? The hockey player? He's good, though."

"He's good for college. He wasn't drafted."

Jay shrugged. "No, well, not everyone is. He's not planning on going pro?" Jay was clearly shocked. If you could make the show, you made the show, was what most people thought. Most Canadian people. Jay had a very suspicious sounding accent once he got talking.

Tony said, "He's not planning on not going pro is the best answer I can give to that. But he's doing sports management type stuff, some general business classes. I've overheard talk of an MBA. To his friends, right? You wouldn't tell your father those plans."

Jay laughed. "No, of course not. I did a study on NCAA players last year, and it was ― you don't care about that part. I think he's good. Good for college, like you say. He could top out as a good player in this league or do better in Europe."

Tony tilted his head and looked at Jay, who wasn't telling him his boy could make the NHL someday like everyone else did. Jay hadn't listed off all the undrafted college boys who'd made it. He hadn't said anything about Andy maybe being a late bloomer. "Is he better than Jonas?" Tony asked

Jay groaned. "Jonas is such a hard one to figure out. He's played all over, so his data is a mess. But, uh, not quite, I don't think."

Tony nodded. It was about what he thought too. "Thanks for telling it straight, kid. Just out of curiosity, what do you think of Jimmy?"

"Oh, Jimmy is great, Tony. Really great. You haven't seen yet what he can bring to a team. It's hard to see it, you have to look at the numbers, but he's got a lot of potential."

"I'll keep that in mind, kid."

Tony watched the three of them walk away; Willie looked over his shoulder a couple of times. Tony wasn't real clear on what Willie did other than herd Jay and Mike around.

The bus ride home brought them to Bridgeport at about three in the morning. Tony bypassed the office and dumped his gear in his car and drove home. He tried to be quiet, and he slid into bed without waking Cally up.

Tony got up the next morning, late, to an empty house. He went into the office for the afternoon, finished his work, and to tell the truth, at least in his own head, he was waiting for Pete to show up. The Lions were in town, so Pete would be at the main office, and Willie and the boys would be making their reports.

Tony did half an hour in the gym and came back to find Pete sitting in the chair of shame. "You should call first, Pete, and I'll go workout after you visit."

"I like hiding in here where no one can find me. They have to make decisions on their own for five minutes," Pete said. "How was the roadie."

"Good, until it wasn't."

"Yeah, that last game … that was garbage."

Tony shrugged. "It happens. It happens a lot at this time of the year. You know the schedule is bullshit, and once you're facing head on the idea you ain't getting a call-up for the rest of the NHL season, the urge to play hard wanes a little. They'll pick it up."

"What if we need a call-up?" Pete asked briskly. "I want to see Jonas in action."

Tony shook his head. "Nope. Don't. He's still too far behind the curve. If you want a guy to sit in your press box, play in your practices and get in a game when you're playing a bad team or two, you want Jimmy."

"He never scores," Pete said, outraged at the very idea of Jimmy. Tony thought it was fake, and a bad fake. Pete wasn't even playing him hard, and Tony had never been a guy who took to that well. If some guy on the other team tried to act like they should just go through the motions, Tony was usually inclined to run him hard into the boards.

"Why are we having this conversation that you've already had with Willie-boy? You want to compare our stories? Pick the one you like better?"

Pete sighed at him. "Tony, tell me why I should call the fucking guy up, okay?"

"Because he doesn't do dumb shit, Pete. He will get the puck, he will keep the puck, and he will pass the puck to a better guy. Don't put him out with fucking bangers and crashers because he won't have a clue what to do. Put him with real players."

"Fine, fine. Was that so hard? Jesus fuck, Tony, you can be a fucking asshole sometimes."

"Yeah, yeah."

"What about Craig, what's up there," Pete said, switching gears.

Tony needed an aspirin and a half a bottle of whisky. "I think Craig is a guy Graves hired in consultation with Joe. I get along with him fine, and I am not his boss."

"Tony ―"

"Nope." Tony chopped his hand in the air. "No, Pete. You want to talk about Craig, you invite me along to Joe's office or to yours with Joe there. I'll give you my unvarnished fucking opinion. But I'm not your inside man here. I'm not your end run around Joey. I am not your employee, and I have enough fucking money in my bank to tell you to fuck off. Maybe you do this to guys who can't, but that's the price you pay for dealing with me. I don't give a shit."

"Bullshit," Pete exploded. "Bullshit. Grade A bullshit. You give more shits than any other guy in this fucking building." Pete deflated a little. "Other than Joe," he said in a calmer voice. "But fine. Fine, Tony. I hear you. We will have that fucking conversation. Maybe now's not the time." Pete scrubbed his hands in his hair. "Look, we tried to get a guy at the deadline to fill Cally's shoes, and we couldn't pull the trigger. I didn't pull the trigger is the truth. Didn't like the deal. So we're making do, and I need to do something that looks like I have a fucking plan with the Cubs if not with the Lions."

"If you had the balls at the deadline to do nothing, where'd they go?" Tony asked, and then he grinned at Pete's face.

Pete sighed at him, loudly. "Yeah, point. I shouldn't just do something to look busy. I should tough it out."

"Give us another few games with Jimmy and then come and harass us again. Maybe talk to Craig yourself, Pete."

"Yeah, yeah," Pete said sullenly, and then cracked a grin almost as dirty as he'd used on the ice in the good old days.

Tony went home later than he'd planned and walked into the smell of cooking meat. He was instantly starving. Not just for food, either. The hallway was dark, but the kitchen light was casting a glow, drawing him in along with the smell. He wasn't sure exactly when he'd seen Cally last, awake anyway, but he wanted him like he needed him to stay alive. The lack of loud music was odd. Tony detoured to the bedroom to dump his laptop out of the way of temptation and to change out of his work clothes. He could skip dinner and go right to bed if Cally could be talked into it.

Cally was wearing the brightest acid green shirt that Tony had bought for him. His shorts were new, Tony thought ― black, but tighter than what he'd always worn before. A large tablet was propped up on the counter with a recipe page on the screen, the colourful pictures of food not nearly as enticing as the smell of whatever Cally had made.

"Babe," Tony said.

Cally spun around and held up his hand like a stop sign. "Tony! First, before you say another word, it tastes better than it looks."

Tony almost stopped himself from saying the first thing that came to mind, but then he remembered his man wasn't as sensitive as he'd been about some things, so he went for it. "The first time I ever sucked a guy's dick he said the same thing."

Cally dissolved into laughter and then strode across the room and wrapped Tony up in his big body and long arms and kept laughing into his hair. It was everything he'd needed in boring New Hampshire and irritating Rhode Island. Or anywhere else. "Oh, babe, I love you so much," he said.

Cally surprised by pulling away and frowning for a second. "Tony, we have to eat the ugly dinner I made, okay?"

"Sure. I trust you. Serve it up."

It was really ugly. "Babe, I'm rethinking my trust, here. What is this?"

Cally waved a fork at him. "Eat!"

"Fine, okay. You're getting me all hot ordering me around like that, you know."

Cally ignored him and dug in. Tony ignored how strange he was acting and did too.

It did taste better, but the mood in the room made Tony keep in any jokes. It was beef and was obviously some sort of stew, but there was too much liquid and it was a weird colour. Tony ate his from the long practice of socking back team meals when he was exhausted or sick or injured and didn't want to.

Cally had no such experience or none he remembered, and he picked at his.

"Cally, whatever it is. Whatever is wrong, I want you to tell me. But first, eat your food. You'll thank me in the morning when you go to work out. We'll sort it out. You need to trust me on that."

Cally looked up and smiled, fondly, sadly, and he nodded like he understood before he cleaned his plate. Cally cleared the table and came back with Tony's whisky bottle and two glasses. He poured out a decent bar shot in one and a splash in the other.

Tony didn't hesitate to take a good sip. If Cally thought he needed it, he'd trust him on that too.

"My dad called," Cally said. Not a surprising opening. "Do you know a guy called Brad Sangster?" Which was a much more surprising second line.

"Um," Tony said, "sure. He just retired, right? This year or last? He played out west, but he was a good player, not top line, not bottom line, good shot, knew his way around the ice. He's what? Thirty-five or something?"

"Thirty-two."

"And?"

"And he lives in Vancouver, and Dad said, well it was a big long thing full of names of people I don't know, but he said that Brad would be willing to do some coaching if I wanted to come out there."

"Oh," Tony said. He sat back and looked at the ceiling so he didn't have to see Cally's face, see the light of interest in his eyes. He should have thought of that idea himself. It had been staring him right in the face, just from the other side of the equation. What was he but some old man who could tell Jonas and Jimmy average how to play the fucking game?

He'd been too caught up in the two of them to realize that when Cally said he wasn't progressing, he would do something about it. Tony knew Cally was a sprinter, fearlessly running full tilt into life. That hadn't changed.

"I know something. I know a lot of things," Tony said, pausing to drink down the whisky and to pour out some more. "But I've learned lessons you don't know." Tony got brave and looked at Cally, his man, the man he loved. The man he loved more now than he had before. Cally was worried and anxious. He also looked like a man who wanted to find out what Brad Sangster could teach him. "One thing I know, babe, is that you _can_ coach the ones you love. I've done it. I coached my kids when they were kids, and it worked. But there comes a time when a man needs to hear things from someone who doesn't love him. He needs the truth."

Cally leaned in and said, "Is this you telling me you don't love Jonas, Tony? Because he's pretty hot, you know." His lips were so beautiful when he smiled. His eyes were the best shade of blue when they had laughter in them.

"He's not you, babe. But no one is. I feel stupid that I didn't think of this, and I likely could have found you someone in New York, but if you want to go, I can see why you would. You get to spend time with your mom, you get to make your dad happy and maybe he'll lighten up." Cally nodded and pointed at him like that was part of the plan. "Everything in my body is screaming at me to talk you out of it, babe."

Cally frowned and opened his mouth, and Tony held up his hand in the same stop sign Cally had used. "Tell me when you plan to go."

"Now," Cally said simply. "You're busy. The Lions are busy. I need to see if I have it still. If I go now, you can come out to Vancouver when you're done and we'll be together like we should be, and you can see me. Tell me like someone who loves me how I am. Because I trust you more than anyone on earth."

"This is a weird time of the year to train."

"I know that. But I'm not training, I'm learning how to play the game. I don't think that can wait, and Dad said he knows enough guys who play at a high enough level that we should be able to put together some actual scrimmage games. Beer league stuff."

"Another good idea," Tony said, feeling the certainty settle in his gut that Cally was halfway out the door already.

"The Lions guys are worried about over training. They say that I should lay off on that and just work on skills, and that makes sense to me. I should ramp training back up in late summer, they said."

"And if you go, you can get to know Eileen properly," Tony said, trying to make himself like the idea.

"Oh!" Cally said, smiling. "She told me I have a condo in Vancouver. Did you know that?"

"No," Tony frowned. "No, I didn't. Your manager said nothing about that."

"She said I bought it a long time ago, and I rented it out to someone while I was in Kansas City, but when I was traded ― and the guy was on the team out there and he was traded about the same time ― I just let it sit. It's two bedrooms, and nice, she said. Paid for. I sent an email to Tillburg to see if he knows what's going on. Anyway, it means I have an easy way out of staying with my parents."

Tony nodded.

"Tony, tell me how you feel about this. You're doing your reasonable thing, and I can't tell."

He didn't know what to say. He didn't want to come home to an empty house, and he didn't want Cally to go and hear all about how he should stay in Vancouver for the rest of his life and how Tony was bad for him. Cally might decide that made sense to him. He might nod someday to something Josh said about Tony being his worst mistake and just never come back, and Tony could not say any of that. "Pete offered me a job," is what he said.

Cally sat back and crossed his arms. "Is this you avoiding the question?"

"I don't know," Tony said. "I haven't told you about this because you've had stuff to deal with, and I thought it was pointless to even consider it. I thought ― I'm not sure, babe."

"What job?" Cally asked softly. Tony was afraid that tone meant he sounded freaked out and Cally was worried.

"Working for him on the Lions and running player development for the team. For the Cubs too, I think. I thought they had their eye on me for some PR gig, and that would have been easy to say no to. But ― I did, babe, I said no, and so he just asked again."

"Why did you say no?" Cally asked, confused.

"Because if you play for the Lions, I can't work for them, and if I work for them, then I think that means they want to cut you loose."

Cally nodded, like that wasn't news, and Tony sat back and crossed his arms.

"My agent said some stuff about this, and so did Dad. I talked it over with them, and Jonesy once too. The Russians. They don't trust anyone. I think that's what they will want to do unless I finish this summer looking like a sure thing."

"It makes sense from their point of view. If you weren't you, I might recommend that to them."

"I am me," Cally said and grinned. "So, you think you can't take the job?"

"I still half think it's a trap to make you quit, but Pete says it's not. He claims he can make it work. Babe, I came damn close to saying yes to the deal, but I told him I'm finishing this season and then you and me will have time together and then I'll tell him."

"We can do that in Vancouver," Cally said like they'd decided something. "I'm not staying out there all summer without you."

Tony took a breath and tried to nod like that was a thing he knew.

"Tony, you want this job, don't you?" Cally said, leaning forward and taking Tony's hand.

"I do. This is hard, babe. But you deserve a chance, fair and without any roadblocks. You deserve a chance to have your life back."

"Tony, I have my life. It hasn't gone anywhere. I want to try to play again, but if it doesn't work out, it's not me that's going to be upset. I have other things I want to try too. Mom told me there's a cooking school in Vancouver, run by a restaurant chef, and she thinks I should try it for something to do that isn't hockey while I'm out there."

"Your mom loves you and gives good advice," Tony said. "I don't know what to say, babe. I can't tell you what either one of us should do." He looked at Cally and felt the pull, the intense need for him that had burned inside him while he was on the road.

"Tony," Cally said. He stood up and came around the table, and Tony was up and wrapped up in him in the time it took to draw in the breath to say, "Don't go."

He never said it. He couldn't. He opened his hand against Cally's back and set it flat, not holding on, just touching him, feeling him, knowing he couldn't hold him back. All he could do was vow to run however fast he had to to keep up with him.


	17. Chapter 17

The Cubs didn't win the cup.

They got into the second round and lasted a day longer than the Lions before they were beaten. The end came, like the beginning had, in a nothing town a long bus ride from home. The trip home had been quiet, like Tony's house was when he pulled into the garage.

Andy was done school and had taken off on a trip with a buddy for a week in the sun. Patty was working on his exams and had stopped coming over when Tony had got too busy. They complained about the lack of good food when they were there.

Tony wanted to run west, hurry out to Vancouver before it was too late, but he just slept instead. He took the next day off and did the prosaic things you did when the season was over. They were rituals he knew well ― laundry and dry cleaning, cleaning out the scary things in the back of the refrigerator, finally taking the snow tires off the car weeks too late. If a man had a wife to do all that, he could drift around with a beer in hand looking for some way to cap off the season, to tell his mind and his body to stop. Tony used to detail his car back when he was still married. The first year with Cally, Tony had been done first, and he had filled the time watching Cally's games on TV.

He watched the last Lions game on his laptop, watching the coach and the players, seeing them give up in the third like the score had said they had. He caught sight of Pete twice when the camera flashed to the management suite. He looked grim-faced and unimpressed. Tony stopped the game video and backed it up and watched his guys, the ones the Lions had called up at the end, desperate for a spark to get them over the hump of their own limitations. He felt like he should make notes. He decided to put it off for a summer project he knew he'd never really take up.

He was lonely and frustrated and tired, so he slept and let his body tell him when he should get up the next morning.

He made it into the Cubs office before noon after an unsatisfying diner breakfast. He was one of only a few people there. He knew the drill. He started going through all the shit that he had let pile up undone while he'd been focusing on the playoffs. It was not a hell of a lot different from the pile of laundry he'd dealt with the day before.

He wanted his office cleaned out by the end of the week with all his reports done and up to date. He knew what he was doing; he was leaving the place like he was never coming back, just like you did when you cleared out your locker on the last day in case you got traded in the summer. Everyone left him alone behind his closed office door. The players weren't due back in for post-season medicals and locker clean outs for another day, so he buckled down and worked through his mess, and then he went home.

The house had not become less empty while he was out, and he didn't make it farther in than the dark hallway before he was texting his manager to get him on a flight to Vancouver on Friday. To hell with working out the whole week.

He left his office door open the next day, and Jonas started the parade to the chair of shame. "Tony, I will tell you that I don't think we got very far down your list of things I should learn this season. I think I spent too much time on number one."

"I know a guy with a head as hard as yours," Tony said, looking to lighten the mood, but Jonas only nodded, eerily like Cally.

"I liked playing with Cally," Jonas said. "I think I should find someone or perhaps many players this summer who I can work with who are like him. Watch and learn."

"Good idea, Jonas," Tony said. "Where do you go in the summer?"

"I don't know," he said and smiled like he thought that was funny. Tony actually wondered if he had a home to go to anymore. "Last summer was not productive," Jonas added, "I will talk to my agent and see what he can find, but I am sorry to tell you this, I think I might go to Canada."

Tony shuddered theatrically, and Jonas laughed.

"Better than Sweden," Jonas said. "But if you think there are things I can add to my list, please tell me."

"Shoot, shoot, shoot. Spend all your time shooting. And when you aren't shooting, find someone to show you how to play without the puck."

"Shooting," Jonas said. "I had thought we did that one already, but okay. That other thing is harder and maybe why I will go to Canada. Jimmy said I could work out with him and his crew, but I don't know if I want to go to where he lives."

"Jimmy would be an excellent guy to go hang with. Where's he from?"

"It is a place called Regina, which sounds very classy, but when I said that he laughed very loudly."

"Jonas, I'm not sure Regina is ready for you, but it might be the smartest thing you ever do. Don't accidentally marry a Canadian while you're there."

"No, no. Only foolish men do such things." His deadpan face was absolutely perfect. It was always perfect. He only let anyone see what he wanted them to see.

"Jonas, get the fuck out, and I'll see you next fall," Tony said.

"Yes, okay, I hope so."

Jonas was followed by a few other guys on the team who all wanted some advice or to just have a ritual goodbye talk. The players were followed by Craig, who stood awkwardly in the doorway to do the same.

Jay sent him a funny text and admitted he was basically living in the New Haven office until the draft and free agency were over.

By the time Thursday was nearly in the bag, the parade had stopped. Pete had never appeared. Tony looked around his office and thought it looked like a place someone used to work. He shoved his laptop in the bag and left it by the door and went to find Joe.

"Tony! Sit!" Joe said cheerfully when he came in. "Close the door. This is a grownups only meeting."

"We're having a meeting, Joey?" Tony said. "I was hoping it was an Irish wake on this season."

Joe rolled his eyes and got up to open the cupboard behind his desk. It contained stick tape, paperclips, paper, a couple of rally towels from various promotions and a bottle of good Irish whisky that had replaced the scotch they'd killed before the playoffs had started.

He set the bottle on the desk with two glasses and said, "If you want luxuries like ice, you're in the wrong league."

Tony flashed him a grin. He took the double shot, neat, that Joe handed him. "Was that a joke or a pointed remark?"

"Both. I know Pete's after you. He gave me a courtesy heads up on that."

"I won't ask when, Joey, and then you and me never have to question Pete's level of courtesy."

"Good plan. You taking the job? What the hell is the job, anyway?"

Tony sighed. "I said no, Joey. It was fucking hard to do, but I said no, and he came back with a more detailed pitch. He wants to build a real player development department out of the Lions office. He wants me to run it."

"You'd be good at it. Great, even."

Tony nodded. "I'd have to work with Willie-boy, at least until I found out if he was worth putting up with. I'd get to fire his fratboy buddy, though."

"I did not appreciate having those guys show up unannounced in my press box," Joe said, pointing his finger at Tony. "I did not appreciate the lack of consultation."

Joe was pissed off, and Tony understood where it came from. "I had a friendly chat with Willie-boy about that. He didn't know enough to break my jaw, so I'm not sure he's cut out for this league."

"What if he had busted your face?" Joe asked, laughing.

"I'd be less sure I should fire him."

"I thought you weren't taking the job."

Tony glared at him, hot all of a sudden over things that weren't Joe's fault. "Fuck, Joey. Fuck this fucking shit sandwich of a choice. I know if Pete keeps fucking on at me I'll cave in because, yeah, I want that job. You know I love you, and you got me out of PR and took me on when no one else fucking would, but I want that recognition, the status, the admission that I know what the fuck I'm doing here. And the chance to contribute more, make that team good again."

"This is about Cally."

"Yeah. Yeah, it is. I told him, and I told Pete, that he gets a fair shake, Joey. That he gets a real chance to come back if he wants it. And this smells to fucking high heaven to me. It smells like Patty's hockey bag. It smells like a honey-coated trap."

"Patty's hockey bag does not smell like honey, Tony, even if his father is the biggest thing the Lions ever had on the ice."

"Fuck off. What good was I without you stopping the pucks, Joey?"

"We were both fucking great, Tony," Joe said, but he sounded tired and like their glory days had been a long time in the past.

"Things are gonna change here even if I find the balls to say no to Pete," Tony said.

"Things are gonna change," Joe said and raised his glass. "Miranda gave me a lecture on that. Worse than anything that old fuck Matthews used to lay on us. She said I need to embrace it, take it head on, square up and take the shot like a man. Fucking woman. Spent too much fucking time watching hockey games. Never marry a woman who likes the fucking game."

"I'll try to remember that," Tony said dryly.

"Fuck off, Tony," Joe said, sadly. "I don't want you to go."

"I'm going to Vancouver, Joey. That's what I'm doing. I'm going on Friday, I'm going to see how things are. I'm making no decisions until I have enough fucking information to know what I'm choosing."

"Tony," Joe said, ."have you thought about what happens if Cally can play, but needs some time before he can do that in the NHL?"

"What, like, take the year off?"

"No, Tony, like play on the Cubs for a few months."

Tony stared at him.

"So, no, you never thought of that?" Joe said, mildly incredulous.

"No, I never thought of that," Tony answered, fully insolent. "Shit."

"Maybe there is no easy way out of this. Saying no to change might not stop it from happening. Maybe you ― I don't know, Tony, how the hell can I tell you that who you live with means you can't do your job? I can't say that to anyone else. But what the hell do we do here?"

Tony wanted to tell him to figure it out. Why was it always his job to do that? To be not-obviously gay enough to be a problem. "I know one thing, and one thing only, Joey." Tony drained his drink and resisted taking another. He was already going to have to kill time before he could drive home. "Cally comes first. If it's him or me, he wins. Every time."

"Don't make promises to yourself you can't keep, buddy. Or I'll give you the lecture Miranda gave me when I told her I'd quit this team if I had to when she was sick."

Tony groaned. "Joey, I can't take any more. I need to go see Cally and just forget about this." Everyone wanting him to predict the future was wasting their time as much as people were asking Cally to remember the past.

"How's he doing?" Joe asked.

Joe really did look done in. His suit was bagging in places like he'd lost some weight too. The game was draining them both like they still played it, and the game was a hard hill to climb and a fast slide down the wrong side.

"Cally seems fine," Tony said. "He's working on his game, getting to know his family, making friends."

Joe raised his brows. "Should I ask?"

"What?" Tony said, aware he hadn't kept the tone out of his voice.

"Forget it," Joe said. "Just go west, young man. Call me in a month or so."

Tony snorted. As if he'd get cut loose that long. As soon as the Lions started drafting guys or making trades, he'd be called upon to offer his opinion, make plans for development, discuss the draft, and to show up in July for their prospect camp. But he'd take whatever time they'd let him have, take it and run.

He flew to Vancouver on Friday. The flight was boring and familiar and gave him too much time to think about how different Cally sounded on the phone when they talked, and how much he talked about his new best friend, the man Eileen had introduced him to.

Tony flirted with the flight attendant to take his mind off of it all. Maybe that made him the villain of the story, he wasn't sure.


	18. Chapter 18

Tony landed in Vancouver in the late afternoon. He had Cally's address and a key card to his building, and he debated getting a car at the airport, but he decided on a cab at first. He wasn't sure how long he was going to be in town.

Vancouver wasn't as hot as back home had been, but everyone was in shorts and sunglasses on a cloudy day in May, living on hope. Tony had been to the city to play a game or two each year, but never any more often, and he'd never seen Cally's parents' house or this condo Cally had only lived in for a couple of summers. The city looked like a cleaned up California to Tony, which wasn't his scene. He'd lived in New England his whole life, and he liked the unpretentious dullness of Bridgeport and New Haven.

The cab dropped him at a building that was big and bold and had a gorgeous view of the water and the hockey arena across the way. The card Cally had given him let him in the door and the elevator. He'd been relieved to get the card in the mail one day after too many texts about Jeremy, Cally's new friend. Tony had promised himself more than once not to be too big of a dick to the guy, but he wasn't absolutely sure he was going to keep that promise.

The building looked expensive with a lot of big-city flashiness. Vancouver had aspirations New Haven left to Manhattan. He was being a reverse snob. He knew that. Tony knocked on Cally's door, and wasn't all that surprised when Eileen opened it. Cally had been talking about her a lot, too, and Tony assumed they'd been spending time together.

"Tony," she said, faint smile on her face.

"That's me," Tony said, and waited for her to give him enough space to get himself and his luggage in the door. He dumped all of it on the floor out of the way, excepting his suit bag, which he tossed over a handy chair.

Tony waited for Eileen to precede him into the place, and he walked into the main room with its impressive view of sailboats on the water and the mass of modern development across the way. The landscape was so like Bridgeport it made him want to laugh. Bridgeport's arena didn't look like the one outside Cally's window and the view from its parking lot was an old industrial ground no one seemed to think needed condos on it.

He wasn't alone with Eileen and the view. A man was sitting on the sofa, seemingly oblivious to the panorama of upward mobility outside the window behind him. He sat quietly, looking quizzically at Tony.

Tony lowered his gaze and was struck by how ordinary the guy was. His hair was perfectly cut, and his clothes were precise, and Tony would have pegged him as gay even if he didn't know who he was. But he wasn't an attention grabber, not like the flight attendant had been. "Jeremy," Tony said, trying to sound friendly, not bitterly amused. He moved forward and stuck out his hand, and Jeremy paused too long before he stood up and shook.

"You know who I am?"

Tony grinned at him. "Sure, I've heard all about you. Where the hell is Cally, anyway?"

"Slaving in the kitchen for you, like always," Cally said from behind him.

Tony whirled around and grinned. Cally was wearing tight running shorts and a bright blue shirt with a towel tossed over one shoulder, and he looked like everything that was worth having. "Holy shit," Tony said, "you have a real haircut not just a pink mess."

"Fuck off, Tony," Cally said fondly. "You look tired."

"You look like," Tony shrugged, too aware of his audience.

Cally didn't care about things like that. He strode across the room and gathered Tony to him in a clinch any movie director would approve of. He tasted really good. Really good.

When Cally let him go, Tony stepped back and said, "Cally, what are you cooking? Ginger and lemon and honey?"

Cally laughed, too loud and absolutely perfect. "I was tasting the marinade. It's chicken, but it won't be ready for ages. Are you hungry?"

"No, I'll be fine. Now. Now that I've had my hands on you. I'm more than fine."

"I'll get you a beer and we can talk. I had to finish the chicken."

"Food comes first," Tony called over his shoulder.

He found a seat and grinned at Eileen and Jeremy now together on the sofa. Eileen was obviously Cally's sister, but her hair didn't do the pink tinge his did, it was more of a ginger-gold like Josh's. "How is everyone?" Tony asked. "Your parents are good?"

"Yeah," Eileen said. She frowned. "I don't think any of us were prepared for how hard this is."

Tony nodded and wanted to tell her it would be easier if they just accepted Cally was who he was, but they had to find their own way there.

"Beer, Tony," Cally said, handing him a glass and bending to kiss him again.

"Just the one until dinner," Tony said. "I kept sending the flight attendant away for drinks on the plane, and then I kept having to drink them."

"I don't get it," Cally said, wrinkling up his nose. He sat in the nearest chair and turned so he could see Tony.

The view out the window had nothing on his man, and Tony had no trouble keeping his eyes on Cally. "The flight attendant had a very nice rear view," Tony said, and startled a laugh out of Jeremy that got lost in Cally's exuberant hilarity.

"Is that haircut your doing?" Tony asked Jeremy.

"I took him to the guy I go to," Jeremy said.

"You got yours cut," Cally said. "I don't think your guy back home is very good."

"No. No, I was never the kind of guy who made a show of that sort of thing. Easier to blend in if I didn't."

Cally frowned. "I can't blend in, Tony. I think I've learned that while I've been figuring out how to backcheck and what a cycle is."

"No, babe. No, I know." Tony smiled at Cally. "It would be a crime to teach you how."

Jeremy nodded vigorously. It was Eileen who frowned like she was worried.

"How is the backcheck and the cycle going?"

Cally rolled his eyes. Tony sipped his beer and watched him think it over. "Will you come and see a practice?" Cally asked.

"Of course."

"Okay. I think I'll wait and see what you think. It's a lot to learn. Brad suggested I watch some video and I called the team and they sent me some stuff. Not me, I tried that, and it was too weird. Other guys."

"Makes sense."

"Brad has this idea that maybe I'm a blank slate, and I can build whatever game suits me. I like him. He's quiet, doesn't talk a lot." Cally waved his hand expressively. "He's a bit like Jonesy."

"But won't your memory of playing return?" Eileen said. "I don't understand this blank slate stuff. You said you know things on the ice."

Cally sighed. "Yeah. Eileen. Yeah, I do. But I don't have memories of doing it. I have lessons to learn all over the place." Cally turned to Tony and said with feeling, "It's exhausting."

"Mentally," Tony said, nodding. "Jonas said the same thing a few days before the season ended."

"How is he?" Cally asked.

"Good. One of the new guys invited him out west to train. He might go."

"Is that what you do? Go new places with a group of guys? Brad told some stories about that."

"It's never what I did," Tony said. "I just spent more time with my kids."

"Oh!" Cally sat up. "Tell me how everyone is for real."

Tony set down the beer he didn't need to be drinking. "Good. They come around less without you there cooking, I've discovered. But it's weird now, babe, it's the opposite of the old days. They disappear for the summer and I never see them at all."

"I asked Andy what he thought of coming out here, and he said maybe," Cally said. He frowned and looked over at Jeremy and his sister. "I wanted to tell him he should see his brother and you while he has the chance, but I didn't. I don't think you can, can you? Tell a kid that?"

"You can tell a kid anything you like. Will they listen?"

"I don't think so," Cally said. "Mom and Dad," he said and flicked a glance at Eileen, but he continued, "once they got a little used to me, started telling stories."

"About you?" Tony asked, trying to sound a little bored. Eileen was acting a little squirrelly and Jeremy was frowning over this like he disapproved.

"Yeah," Cally said, "About when I was young and left to go play hockey and then when I was drafted. It ― I think. I'm not sure."

Tony nodded. "You think there was some undercurrent there?"

"What's that mean?" Cally asked earnestly.

"It's like a tone. Which you hate, and I know that, so you don't have to tell me again, babe. But it's more subtle. Like they're thinking something they aren't telling you."

"That I left, and this time I should stay?" Cally asked.

Jeremy frowned and turned his face away from Eileen.

"I don't know, babe. Maybe. Maybe something else."

"They want us to come to dinner. You listen and explain it to me," Cally said. He sounded a little imperious, abrupt almost, like he always did when he handed out instructions.

Jeremy turned back and looked at Tony and raised his eyebrows at the look on Tony's face. "Whatever you say, babe," Tony said, just arch enough that Jeremy would hear all the undercurrents. But the reaction he got was amusement, and nothing more.

"They said tomorrow," Eileen said. "For dinner."

Tony shrugged. "I'm on vacation for as long as the team lets me stay away. I'm good with people telling me where to go and feeding me when I get there."

They chatted a bit, the sort of superficial thing you did with people you only knew a little. Work, kids and what are you doing this weekend filled up some time. Tony noticed that Cally got quiet. He knew everyone in the room, so he wasn't hearing anything new.

Tony discovered that he liked Jeremy a surprising amount. He was sharp to see to the heart of things and frowned at Eileen more than once when she talked like Cally was never leaving or that his memory would come back.

"Tony," Cally said, rudely interrupting a dull conversation about the point of Whistler mountain in the summer, "I got a text from Pete."

"De Silva?" Tony clarified.

Cally nodded, and said, "He texts every so often."

"He said you used to talk all the time."

Cally nodded again. "I like him. He's a bit like you, but not ― well, not like that. But he makes me laugh."

Tony was a little uneasy, not sure what Pete's endgame really was. "What did he want?" he asked.

"Oh, this time? He said he's in LA and he might come up."

Tony nodded. "He lived there for a long time before the new job. His wife stayed when he came out east. She's his second wife, and I've met her about twice, I think. So I don't know how that is."

"He has kids? Like you? He does, he said his son is in school."

"Younger by a bit, his oldest isn't quite Patty's age."

"Oh, okay."

"You worried?" Tony asked.

"No," Cally said. "No. Sort of. I don't think I look like a guy you can put in the NHL, but I want you to see and tell me."

"Tomorrow? Do you guys work on the weekend?"

Cally shook his head. "Brad wants a life he said. He's got kids too. Little ones. I met them, and they were so much fun, Tony. They can skate even thought they're tiny. We had a great day that day."

"Monday, then."

"Did you bring skates?" Cally asked with a frown.

"Sure," Tony said easily. "Babe, I am kind of hungry."

"Oh, oh, yeah, it's a bit early, though." Cally wrinkled up his nose like what happened in the kitchen was not Tony's business.

"Time zones, babe," Tony said, resisting the urge to look at Jeremy and jerk his head at the door.

"Okay. I don't get it?"

"My body thinks it's three hours later still."

"Oh, oh! I had that. Jetlag, Jeremy said I should call it."

"We should go then," Eileen said. She stood up and looked a little lost.

"We'll see you tomorrow," Tony said, trying to sound like he was looking forward to it. "Nice to meet you, Jeremy," he said, shaking hands again, and smiling for real. "I might get you to point me at your hairdresser."

"Oh yeah, sure," Jeremy said, and then he looked speculative. "Tony, I can show you guys a club or two if you like? I'm not sure if you're into that?"

"Neither am I," Tony said. "Let's talk about it. Have dinner or something some night this week?"

"Yeah okay," Jeremy said, and then he smiled genuine and only a little wry. "Yeah. I'll tell you where to come and then feed you, okay?"

"Sounds fantastic," Tony said.

Tony watched Cally see out his guests, then Cally turned and stood just inside the door deep in the shadow of the hallway. "You're hungry," he said.

"I am, Cally. I am so hungry I can't describe it. But not for your ginger and lemon chicken."

"That tone, I get," Cally said happily.

He stalked out of shadow, and he was all business. He had changed in the weeks Tony had been gone, gotten harder, bigger in his body and in other ways. "I have wanted you so much," Cally said, raw and full of truth that was almost too much. There was no irony, so wryness, nothing was arch.

Tony could run and catch up to him where he lived now, so big and brave and open, or he could hide. Those were his choices. He didn't have any time to think about it. He was crushed to Cally, consumed by him, while he  desperately held on, and he didn't want to ever fall behind. He'd run as hard as he had to.

Cally was still Cally. He wanted to be commanding and dominating, but he was laughing before they'd ever got to the bedroom, teasing Tony not knowing which way to go. Tony joined him in laughing, joined him on the bed, joined him in stripping out of their camouflage, the clothes they wore to pretend they weren't animals.

Being with Cally was worth all the running he had to do to get there, always. He shouldn't have needed to learn that lesson again. They were a bit rough, too needy to be careful, but after, like always, Cally wanted to hold onto him. "I have missed you so much. I _need_ you," Cally said, softly into the skin of Tony's shoulder.

"Tell me," Tony said.

"Everything is confusing! Everything is hard. So fucking hard. And I need you, I trust you."

"Jeremy helped," Tony said, thinking of that flight attendant's ass in his tight navy pants and Jeremy in his boring and stylish clothes.

"Yeah. I ― yeah. I'm not dumb, you know. I know Eileen thought she was fixing me up with him. I didn't know how to tell him not to think that, so I just ― you had said to me I would figure people out just by being me, so I did that."

"I liked him."

"Me too," Cally said. "I was surprised because I was mad about Eileen meddling."

"He gets it though?" Tony asked. "He isn't holding out hope or something?"

"I can't tell," Cally said. "So much stuff, I can't tell."

"Babe?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we go make that chicken now?"

Cally laughed loudly, and rolled off to stand up and stretch. He was a hell of a sight naked, well used and happy. "I'm having a shower, and then I'll feed you."

Tony didn't unpack until morning. Dinner had segued into a quick trip back to bed, and he was jetlagged enough that he was grateful for the excuse to go to sleep too early. Cally fed him breakfast, and Tony felt every tense muscle in his body un-kink watching his man cook him food.

"Hell of an ass you're building up," Tony said.

Cally wiggled his butt and looked over his shoulder and laughed.

Tony spent breakfast telling Cally about Mike and Jay and Willie-boy. Cally listened closely, watching Tony's face, like he could find things there that weren't in his words. He must have succeeded because he said, "You like Jay. Halfway between a kid you feel like you should look after and a man you like."

Tony scoffed at him. "He's cute, but he's no Jonas."

"Jonas annoys you. You like Jay. No wait, you respect him." Cally pointed with his fork.

"Jonas does not annoy me," Tony said, sounding annoyed even to himself.

Cally, predictably, laughed.

"Tell me a bit about practice," Tony demanded. "Brad, how is he?"

Cally frowned and rubbed his nose. "More Jonas than Jay. Maybe almost Willie-boy. Why didn't he sock you in the mouth for calling him that, anyway?"

"Because he doesn't know how to get respect," Tony said.

"Brad is really down on guys who never played the game."

"I don't think Jay's ever had skates on. No, wait, he's got a funny accent, so maybe as a kid."

"Funny?" Cally asked.

"Yeah, like you and everyone else in this country."

Cally was delighted, and he exaggerated his vowels like Pat did when he was mimicking him and said the same sorts of nonsense phrases about being out in boats.

Tony said, "He texts me sometimes. I can't decide if he knows something about Pete's big ideas or not."

"Jay?" Cally asked.

"Yeah."

"Explain to me why you haven't said yes to Pete's big ideas, no wait." Cally looked out at the sky, the vast expanse of it outside his windows. He narrowed his eyes. "If it doesn't rain, we should go outside. You can tell me later."

"What do you want to do."

"I like rollerblading."

"You want to make me work?" Tony asked. He sat back and crossed his arms on his chest, sold it hard.

"I noticed _your_ ass, Tony, you have been working hard. Come on, it's fun. We can go along the water, look at boats, eat lunch somewhere."

"I don't think that was just noticing you were doing, babe."

"No," Cally said and grinned and then blushed deep red.

"Oh, babe. That is an amazing look. Let me feel if your face is hot."

Cally fought him off, and they ended up running around the place like kids, laughing and fighting. Tony delayed Cally's brilliant plan to go rollerblading with a stopover back in bed. He gave in to Cally's plan eventually, but he made Cally work at persuading him because that was fun.

"How do I stop in these?" Tony asked the guy renting him a pair of skates at a booth on the waterfront.

The guy had skates on, and he acted like he lived in them. He slid out from behind his counter and gave a demonstration of how to hold your body while you braked. Cally didn't have brakes on his and he looked on smugly at the sign of a thing he knew more about than Tony. Tony indulged him by playing up his inexperience a little. He hadn't skated on the things since the boys were little.

He should get a pair, he decided, when he was half a mile down the paved waterfront promenade. Cally was fast, and Tony had to struggle at first to keep up, but he found the stride that let his legs do what his legs knew how to do. He wasn't that far from his playing days, and he'd left the game with his feet mostly intact. He caught up, and they sped off, passing everyone else out on a Sunday morning.

Cally had a plan for lunch, it became clear. They turned around at his insistence, skated back and stopped at a place with tables right next to the pavement. Skate up service. Tony would admit it was good to sit down for a while, just not out loud. He said, "I went to a tournament when I was a kid in Holland. You know what I mean?"

Cally tilted his head and looked at Tony and slowly smiled. "No one asks me that. They're afraid to be insulting, I finally figured out."

"I don't want to insult you either, babe, I just know that you're a bit like playing the slots. Pull the handle, and it's a thing you know. Pull it again, and you're confused."

Cally laughed and nodded. "Like shooting the puck. Who the hell knows when it's going in, right? Holland is a place in Europe, and they have windmills."

Tony nodded and sipped his coffee. "And canals. Long, wide, perfect canals that freeze in the winter, and people skate on them. Miles of skating."

"Oh, like here," Cally said, enthused. "Only on ice. I'd love to go there."

"It's a thing you give up, when you play this game, going anywhere in the winter ― real winter."

"I think there's a lot of things I'm supposed to give up," Cally said, looking out at the boats on the water instead of at Tony.

"You decide all that when you're too young to know better. At least I was. And then I was on the conveyor belt, hooked on the drug, and it was too late." Tony was ashamed the moment the words were out of his mouth. He didn't want to put that onto Cally. He wanted Cally to decide for himself how to feel about the game.

"What drug?" Cally asked.

"Winning. Having people tell you you're great. Proving you're the best. Being the best. Having people want to fuck you because you're a star."

Cally wrinkled up his nose. "Tony, I think they want you because of who you are. For the way you look when you're planning what you want. For how you are when you get it."

"That's love, babe, not fucking."

Cally sighed. "I don't think so. But maybe I don't know how this works."

"Or maybe I don't know."

"Oh! That's so weird when people don't. I'm really shit at telling when someone is lying or just full of it. Brad has to help me with that when we practice."

Tony had never considered that. That Cally had spent all his time in Bridgeport with people who had his best interests at heart, who were worthy of his trust. Was Brad worthy, Tony suddenly wondered for the first time. "You have practice tomorrow, right?"

Cally nodded, and said. "Can we go home now? I want to be with you before dinner."

"Okay, but we don't need to rush."

"I said we'd come early so I can help cook. Eileen is bringing this guy for the first time, and I want dinner to be good."

"What guy?"

"Yeah, what guy? That's what we all want to know."

Tony nodded like that made sense and got up to follow Cally back the way they'd come. Cally had a hell of a rear view. Why ever look at anyone else?


	19. Chapter 19

Cally's parents lived in exactly the sort of house Tony had expected. It was smaller than his and in a more modest neighbourhood, but it had the look of a family home from the days when back yards were bigger than the garage.

Cally had a bag of various cooking supplies, and Tony had a bottle of wine as a gift. They walked straight in the open door, and Tony reminded himself that Canadians were crazy like that, leaving their doors unlocked. He knew enough to take his shoes off, and he waited to see how Cally wanted to respond to Josh calling from one direction that he had a video for Cally to see, and Donna hollering from the kitchen that he was just in time for something else Tony didn't quite understand.

"They fight over me," Cally whispered to Tony. "Come on, we'll go give Mom this wine and dump this stuff."

"Okay."

Tony followed along, looking with curiosity at a house that had been fully lived in for decades. He'd had a house like that once, and he'd been relieved to get out of it for reasons that had nothing to do with the house itself. He'd never really made much of his Bridgeport place. He'd left it behind, professionally cleaned just like his office. He wasn't sure his life in Bridgeport was real, now that he could see what that looked like.

"Oh, Tony," Donna said, seemingly happy to see him. "This wine is lovely, thank you. How was your flight?"

"Oh, great," Tony said, grinning, and trying not to react to Cally making a face at him. "Short enough."

"That's lovely. Sean, your father will insist you go look at his videos, but I want you to help me with this roast."

"Okay, basting?"

"Yes. Please."

"Okay, come get me when it's time, and I have the balsamic and the oil in here." Cally set his bag on the table and kissed his mother on the cheek like it was something they did all the time.

He led Tony out of the kitchen and along a strange disjointed hallway to a family room down a half flight of stairs.

Josh was in a recliner, remote in hand, seemingly happy being a cliché come to life, watching baseball on a huge television.

"Tony," Josh said, not getting up. "Sean, come see this video." Josh fiddled with a whole set of remotes and a video clip of Cally from junior hockey came to life on the screen. Tony knew the clip instantly. When Cally had first been traded to the Lions, Tony had looked him up out of curiosity and it was the moment everyone knew about. It had defined him as a kid.

Cally perched on the edge of a sofa and watched. Tony stayed standing, hands shoved in his pockets. On the screen, Cally, big for his age even as a teenager, slipped the puck between a defender's legs, levelled him before the guy could try the same, picked up the puck, skated in and scored.

"You see what you did there?" Josh said.

"Okay," Cally said. "I think that's not something you do a lot in a real game. Brad says zone entries are very important, and I sort of get it, but I'm not sure I always know what to do. I don't think I could do that."

"You do that in the NHL, you'd get dumped on your ass and it would be on the other guy's highlight reel," Tony said.

Cally turned and looked at him intently. "You're coming to practice, right? You said you would."

"Of course," Tony said, easily. Everybody was tense all of a sudden.

"I need to go talk to Mom," Cally said and stood up and left.

Tony watched him go and took his spot on the sofa, stretched out and relaxed. "How's everything, Josh?" he said.

Josh, very surprisingly, gave him a fifteen minute rant on Eileen's mystery boyfriend that she was bringing over for the first time. Tony half tuned him out. Andy told him approximately nothing about his girlfriends, friends, anything outside of his grades and his hockey team. Tony had learned to accept it. Eileen seemed to be smarter than he'd given her credit for if she was hiding her new man in Tony's shadow.

"Does your boy act like this?" Josh demanded.

Tony didn't know what 'this' was, so he just sighed and said, "Andy lived with his mother before he moved into the dorm. So I figure she gets one set of facts, I get another, Pat gets something like the truth, and no one really gets the whole story."

Josh grumbled something. He didn't seem to have accepted his loss of control over his kids very well.

"Cally might know what's up with Andy. They seem to have hit it off, and I think they text a lot. They didn't before. Get along very well."

"Yeah?" Josh said, turning to look at Tony and leaving another frozen image of his lost son Sean on the screen. "Why?"

"Why didn't they before? I don't know. Andy was busy. Cally was busy. I don't know. It takes time to get used to big changes, and my boys didn't get along with me so good for a while."

Josh looked at him and frowned, looked away. "He's trying. Sean is, he's trying to get along."

"He's still the same man, a good man who cares about people."

"Yeah. He and his mother spend a lot of time together. Weekends. Cooking."

"Sounds good to me," Tony said.

"Can I ask you something?" Josh said, turning right around in his chair to fix Tony with a stare. "You'll tell me where to get off if it's too personal, but where are your parents? I, uh, I looked you up. Doesn't say."

"Did you ask Cally?" Tony said, curious and stalling for time.

"Yeah. He laughed and said he'd never even thought about it and then he wouldn't talk about it."

"Sounds like him. He misses obvious things sometimes. My family wasn't happy with my divorce. They're Catholic. So is Jane and her family. They all know each other, get along, and they had expectations that they'd see their grandchildren grow up and get married and we'd all have a big party on some anniversary ending in a zero. They don't see me and Cally in that kind of picture." Tony shrugged.

"And you're fine with that?" Josh asked, outraged like he liked to be.

"Doesn't help me much to not be. They're honest, true to what they believe. I don't fit, and I won't make myself fit for them." Tony tried to deliver that in a tone of warning. He'd gotten used to the strained relationship with his family that had started long before he'd ever come out and was at least a little about money. Josh didn't seem to see that his own lack of outright disapproval wasn't really any better, and that watching videos of the man Cally considered dead and gone likely hurt a lot worse than uneasiness over who he had sex with.

Eileen's arrival saved Tony from much more of Cally's youthful brilliance. After all the hype, the mysterious boyfriend seemed really dull to Tony. He was Eileen's age, just out of school and working for the government at a job he admitted was two rungs below what he could handle.

"Is this like hockey," Tony asked, "where they make you pay your dues?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I played volleyball."

"To each their own," Tony said.

They were in the living room proper, and everyone was awkwardly perched on uncomfortable chairs and sofas that hadn't ever seen much use. Eileen had claimed the only two-seater so she could sit next to her new man. His name was Seth, he was thin, clean shaven, sort of lopsided in his face, and that made his smile wry. He had tight curly black hair and dark brown eyes. More like Tony's people than Eileen's. He was quiet, respectful, but not smarmy.

Tony had to resist the urge to poke at his surface calm and see if it was real. He wasn't a player Tony needed to dissect.

"What's funny?" Cally asked him, leaning in from his seat on a chair too far away for touching. Tony would take his hand if he were closer. He wanted to touch him all the time, and he knew it would wear off, but he wanted a proper reunion while he burned for it ― a real holiday. "It stopped being funny," Cally said. "Now you're frowning."

"Just what I was thinking about, babe," Tony said.

"We should go in to dinner," Donna said, standing up. She'd only sat for a brief moment.

Tony let them tell him where to sit, and they went through the ritual of sorting out what people wanted to drink. It all seemed awkward. Cally wasn't at home, and yet he was familiar, but he didn't do what they expected him to do. Josh talked to him like he was Sean who had the same habits as before. And Cally didn't hesitate to put him straight. Any worries Tony had had that his family would try to carve him back into a replica of who he'd been were washed away. Cally was almost too hard on them, insisting he knew his own mind.

Seth got a little quieter while a discussion of ice in Cally's water glass almost turned into an argument. Tony barely spoke. Donna smoothed it over and served dinner which was roasted lamb and Cally's usual supply of vegetables in quantity. It was all very good. Better than most family dinners.

"This is really good, Donna," Tony said. "Restaurant quality."

Donna lifted her chin at her son and Tony turned to see him sitting up very proud. "Sean did the meat ― most of it. I was allowed to turn on the oven, I think."

"I learn fast, the man at the cooking classes said. He said I'm a good student because I don't assume I know everything. I told him I don't know anything, and he said, 'Neither does anyone else.' I was the only one who laughed." Cally shrugged.

"Can't wait to get you home, now. Maybe I'll see my kids again if you're cooking." Tony laughed, and said, "Obviously they love you best," and realized after it was out of his mouth that it had been an old joke between him and Jane when the boys were young.

Donna laughed, and Eileen seemed amused, but Tony was watching Josh to see how he took the idea that Cally would come home soon.

"I don't get it," Cally said, and Tony gave up on Josh and his frowning attention on his meal and turned to Cally.

"What don't you get?"

"It's a joke, people laughed. But they don't love me best, that's not true. I don't get it."

"It's a thing people say," Tony said, "about kids usually. That they like one parent more than the other. It's ― " Tony tilted his head and thought about it. "You ask these questions and it's hard to explain. You make me think too much, babe."

Cally nodded his head. "I get that a lot. This one is not a thing I know."

"Kids say it too," Donna said. "Mom likes you best, that sort of thing. For a child, it's about learning they don't have to compete for your love. When a child gets older, they should understand that Mom loves all her children. But sometimes, it's hard to get that confidence."

Cally sliced off some of his lamb and chewed thoughtfully. "This is like guys chirping. Sort of."

"Sort of," Tony said. "More than sort of in our house, I guess."

"Yeah!" Cally said fondly. "Oh! Eileen," he said enthusiastically, "Andy calls Pat, Pattycakes, when he's trying to cause trouble. Did we ever do that? Call each other rude things?"

She blushed immediately, and bought time with a sip of water. Donna was watching her closely, like a hound on a scent. "There were a few things," Eileen said. "You had a teacher who insisted your name was pronounced like seen. I used to bug you about that."

Cally nodded. "It should be. There's no h in there."

"That is so weird," Eileen said. "That used to just drive you up the wall."

Cally shrugged. "I like my hockey name."

"Does anyone in hockey use their actual name?" Seth asked.

"Tony does," Cally said.

"Better than Greener," Tony said, with disgust.

"That's Andy's instagram handle, too," Cally said, amused, and looking at Tony for a reaction. The exact kind of needling he didn't know how to do with his sister anymore.

"Better than the other one," Tony groused.

Cally laughed, delighted. "I like Tricky."

"You would, babe." Tony stopped and looked at Cally, his man, who liked his kids' silly names. "I missed you a hell of a lot."

"Me too," Cally said, "a hell of a lot." He nodded firmly and went back to his food.

Donna began gently questioning Seth about his job, his family, and it took Tony a few minutes to realize she was looking to see what his attitude to children was. Seth was very good at deflecting the questions onto innocuous topics, and eventually Donna gave up.

"This green bean thing is very good," Eileen said.

"Mom made that one, but I've made it before too," Cally said.

Eileen said, "You never cooked before, it's so weird."

Cally frowned. "I like it. I liked the classes. No one expects me to be the best ever and if I do okay, everyone is happy."

"What were these classes?" Tony asked.

"Mom found it. It's at a restaurant with a chef and it's supposed to be for advanced students, but she pulled strings for me."

"Lawfirm client," Donna said.

Tony nodded. "And you can keep up with the advanced students?"

"I have to ask questions sometimes. The chef ― Dan Wong ― he has an assistant and they both answered my questions and stuff. After the first couple of times, it was great. I knew what to read up on."

"That's a lot of special attention," Seth said. "Obviously it works, though, this food is great."

"I have a lot of money," Cally said, and Tony had to hide a grin at Josh's wince. "And they aren't subtle. Even I can tell they want me to invest in their restaurant."

"Oh," Seth said. "Oh. I guess — does that happen a lot?"

Cally shrugged. "I got what I want out of it, so I don't care. I asked my manager to look at their business. He said it's not a good investment, and I listen to him about that stuff right now. Maybe I should learn about it so I can know for myself."

Josh said, "Sean, you need to focus on your game. I know this is all confusing, but if you don't work at it, you won't get it back."

"Dad," Cally said. "Brad sets my practice schedule. I go and learn, and you know he said the same thing Chef Wong did, that I learn stuff fast, that I pay attention and focus and have a lot of drive."

"Eileen, honey," Donna said. "When are you hearing about the new job?"

Eileen glared at her brother, but Cally just looked mystified at her. He was failing at keeping their parents occupied on him, but he'd never understand that.

"Soon," Eileen said, "They don't give firm dates."

Tony tuned them out while they talked about their lives, the details of things they all knew and cared about and he didn't.

"How often do you go to chef school?" Tony asked Cally in a lull in the conversation.

"It was two nights a week, but it's done now."

"I wonder if there's anything like that back home."

"I've looked online," Cally said. "I might have to go to New York to find anything."

"Doable if it's in the off-season."

"He needs to focus," Josh said.

"Josh, every guy in the game needs a life," Tony said.

"When you're training, you can't have distractions," Josh said stubbornly.

"I had a family, Josh. I trained through teething and chicken pox and more arguments than anyone needs to remember. I trained while my kids were learning to skate and learning to shoot and learning to read. I was always distracted, Josh, and I scored more fucking goals than most guys who ever played the game."

"No hockey language at the table," Cally said primly.

Tony turned and glared at him, which just made him sit up taller and look a lot less prim. "Whatever you say, dear," Tony said, aiming for Jonas's deadpan delivery and ending up a little too acidic.

Cally laughed. Tony wanted to grab him and drag him to bed or drag him to Bridgeport and then bed. He just wanted to tell him somehow that he was everything, more than all the goals. The moment passed, and Cally speared up the last of his green beans. "Wait, is that true?"

"What, babe?" Tony said, absently, still trying to plan a quick exit and an early night.

"You scored a lot of goals?"

"I was hot, um, stuff, babe. You should look up my game video if you want to see how it's done."

"I think I will," Cally said firmly. "Dad has a tablet hooked up to the TV, which he says he did himself, no teenagers needed, so he's better than us at that stuff. We'll look at it after dinner."

Tony looked at Cally, who seemed to not be joking, and then looked around the table at everyone watching them. "You'll get an eyeful of Pete de Silva too. Not a bad idea."

They all assembled in the family room after dinner was done. Cally worked the tablet, mumbling about the clips he was finding and poking at the thing like he knew what he was doing. And then on Josh's huge TV, there was Tony as a young man, sniping a beauty past a goalie who gave him the long stare while he hugged Pete like they were brothers. He knew the season, if not the exact game. He'd been at the stage where he'd decided to drag his marriage on for the sake of the boys. Not his biggest mistake in life, but a close second.

Cally played another one, and it was one Jay would like. Tony gained the zone and deked out three guys, dropping the puck back between guy two and guy three to Pete who was nearly, but not quite, in the left defenceman's stick range. Pete sent it right back through traffic, and Tony put it in.

"Wow," Cally said. "It's like you read each other's minds."

"Felt like it," Tony said, and then he kept going, aware of the audience and deciding not to care. Cally had another video playing, but he talked over the shouted commentary. "You've never had that. Not in the NHL. It's one of those things, Cally, that some guys never get. But if you come back, if you can, you might have it. It's ― I'm biased, babe, but it's not something you want to miss out on."

"You still really like Pete," Cally said, staring intently, like he'd found a thing he needed to learn. "Not like other guys you played with?"

"Yeah, and I know him too, how he thinks, what buttons to push, how to rile him up. I did some of that this spring while he was trying to use me as his inside man."

Cally frowned. "Like Patty and Andy?"

"Sort of. I think they trust each other more than me and Pete do."

Cally nodded. "I feel like that should be me and the Russians, but everyone says they aren't right for me to play with. But I like them. I felt something."

Tony looked around at the silent faces turned his way, and he cracked a grin at Cally anyway.

Cally got it right off, and laughed. "Tony, not like that. Not like Jonas who irritates you."

"He does irritate me!" Tony said, arguing the point Cally was implying, and failing. He looked for a chance of subject. "Play the damn playoffs one. The game six one."

Cally poked away at the tablet and the screen was filled with his most famous moment. Pete was behind the net with the puck, and Kristofer Enting was driving the slot like he was being towed by a motor boat. The defenders had turned to race to catch the centring pass to Enting they knew was coming, and Tony slipped into position behind them. Pete set him up perfect, and the shot hadn't even been hard to make, but the angle of the camera was perfect. It looked like a movie. Cally played it twice.

"We lost game seven," Tony said. Cally looked up at him and frowned. "The game can break your heart. Break your mind if you aren't strong. Make sure it's what you really want before you go for it."

Tony saw Josh frown and look down. Josh didn't say much after, didn't watch any of the other things Cally found to look at. A lot of Pete, less of Tony. Cally was nervous about Pete coming to Vancouver, Tony figured.

The game of video searching got old, and Seth made noises about leaving, so Tony stood up and just got Cally and himself out the door in his wake. He'd had enough McCallum family time to last him for months. He wanted his man to himself.


	20. Chapter 20

Cally's practice session was in the afternoon at a rink in the suburbs near where Brad lived. There was no one much around, and they were undisturbed. No press had found Cally's secret place to work out and learn the game.

Brad had four other guys on the ice, no one Tony knew, and he didn't want to get in the way so he stood behind the glass on the far side from the benches and watched. He discovered that the door to the penalty time keeper's box was unlocked, so he stepped inside and watched from there.

Brad ran some fairly predictable drills, offensively focused, nothing unexpected. Cally looked very odd with the other three. He was, at times, nearly perfect compared to them, and at other times seemed not to know what to do. You learned drills, Tony supposed, over time, and you got good at the drill itself. And that got him wondering how good the drills were after a while. When Cally was good, he was glorious, maybe better in some ways. But when he was bad, he was worse than Jonas. Tony needed to see him in a scrimmage to really get a handle on his game.

After an hour of skill exercises, Brad took a break and Cally skated over and slumped in the penalty box. Tony opened the door between them and leaned on the door frame.

"You see?" Cally asked, after he'd drained half a water bottle and spit half of that back out.

"Yeah, I do."

Cally nodded.

"You're progressing," Tony said.

"I am, yes." Cally nodded. "I'm a mess, though."

"Who's the guy in the red jersey?" Tony asked.

"Caleb Williams," Cally said. "He's a good guy. He explained junior hockey to me once I convinced him I really don't remember. He plays on my old team."

"He's a junior?"

Cally looked up and smiled. "You always know who's the best guy, don't you? He is in our scrimmages too. He's 21 in January."

"Undrafted," Tony said thoughtfully, getting out his phone and making a note of the name. "When's your next scrimmage?"

"Wednesday night. Some of the guys work, so it has to be at night."

Tony nodded. "Cally, progress isn't always a straight line. Was it at cooking school?"

"No!" Cally said and laughed. "They laughed at me a lot for things I didn't know. Caleb helps me out, tells me the unwritten rules. I'm glad I don't remember junior, to be honest."

"Nothing worse than a bunch of teenagers who think they're hot shit, babe."

"Is Andy's team like that?"

Tony snorted. "Worse. They think they're smart too. They got into Yale, after all. Not as bad as Harvard, but close."

"But Andy's nice," Cally protested.

"At home, sure. Because he'll never be the biggest asshole in our house."

Cally tilted him a look. "Has he said he loves you yet?"

"Nope. I'm wearing him down though. I should text." Tony pulled out his phone again, sent a generic message to say he was just checking in. He signed it, 'love, Dad,' and felt lighter than he had since before they went to Cally's parents' house for dinner.

Cally went back to work. Tony went back to watching.

When the rest of the session was done, Tony waited in the hallway outside the dressing rooms, looking up Caleb Williams on his phone. He wanted Jay's opinion, and nearly sent him a text. Tony sighed and closed his phone. He was acting like he'd already taken Pete's job, and he couldn't do that. Cally deserved his chance.

Brad Sangster interrupted his worries with a tentative. "Hey, uh, Tony?" 

"Brad," Tony answered, moving to shake hands. "Interesting group of guys you've got out there."

"Yeah," Brad sighed. "Yeah. I wasn't planning on this for the summer, it just sort of snowballed, but it's been good."

"Careful, some team will give you a job and there goes your summers off for good."

"Yeah. You have to go back to your job, I suppose?"

"At some point. It's early yet, but they won't leave me alone for long. Look, speaking of, you know Pete de Silva is planning on showing up here? And knowing Pete, he'll just do that, show up."

"He's your AGM now?" Brad said.

"He's Cally's AGM," Tony corrected. "I don't work for him." Yet, his brain supplied all on its own.

"Okay. Cally. He's, well, you saw."

"I did, Brad. I want to see a scrimmage. You're doing that Wednesday?"

"Yeah, it's not high-level stuff, but there's a bunch of juniors, older guys, some university guys."

"Sounds interesting."

"Yeah. I gotta tell you, working with Cally has really changed my mind about some parts of coaching. He seems a bit naturally inclined to a smaller man's game, if you know what I mean."

Tony frowned. "Not sure I do, Brad."

"He was always big for his age, his dad told me that, and you know what junior is like."

"Mmm. Indirectly, but are you saying he got shunted into a hitting game when he should be shooting the puck?"

"Yeah. A bit, I mean, he can handle himself, but if were a Euro, you know?"

"I do, Brad, yeah. Is that what you're doing, making him over into a different kind of guy?"

"No, no. Josh got me this job, you know."

"I know," Tony said, patiently. Brad looked like he had more to say, but wasn't sure he should.

"Josh sees his kid when he looks at Cally, and it's really obvious that the skill is there, but he hasn't got a clue what to do with it. Josh said he'd remember once we got going, but that's not happening. I don't think so, anyway. I started with what he understands, and that just seemed to lead us to a different kind of game."

"Blank slate," Tony said.

"Yeah," Brad said, nodding vigorously. "Yeah, and he learns really fast. Josh isn't really on board with this plan."

"Josh is not in charge of Cally, Brad. Neither am I. Pete isn't either, even if he thinks he is. You do what Cally says, and we'll be fine."

"He works good with that kid, Caleb. They hit it off."

"Yeah, tell me about him," Tony said, trying to sound bland.

"Oh, he's a good kid. Should have been drafted in my opinion, and wasn't because his team is pretty bad, and well, you know. He works hard, has some skill around the net, not enough, maybe. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah, sure. Dozens like him around the league, almost good enough." And Caleb was black, was what Brad's 'you know' was meant to cover over.

"Maybe he is good enough, though," Brad said, not sounding too sure.

"Hmmm. Maybe."

"So, de Silva, I know him a bit, eh? He played out here, dirty son of a bitch sometimes."

"Aren't we all, Brad?" Tony asked with a grin, and Brad surprised him by laughing.

"Yeah, okay. Tough customer was how I remember him. Is he like that in a suit too?"

"Oh, not much has changed with Pete. Smarter than he looks, still. Listen, assume he's coming Wednesday, and do whatever you think you should there. But do me a favour, okay? When you set up the guys to play, put Cally with Caleb."

"Yeah, okay," Brad said, and tilted is head. "What are you up to?"

"Just want to see the kid a little with the best player on the ice."

Brad blew out a breath. "Cally is, you know. He is. But he's all over the place too. Unpredictable."

"Oh, yeah, I know that," Tony said. "He'll surprise you in all kinds of ways."

"Unpredictable ain't real popular on most teams."

Tony grinned at Brad. "Cally's never really fit the mold."

"No. No, I guess not." Brad nodded like Tony had said something he knew, just like Cally did, and Tony wondered if the gesture was contagious. Maybe he'd pick it up.

Brad left him to wait alone, and he wanted to meet Caleb, but it was Cally that came out first, hair wet and staining a hat pulled low. He had his bag slung over his shoulder, and he was frowning down at his feet.

"You want me to drive?" Tony asked.

Cally nodded, and they headed out to the parking lot and the rental SUV Cally drove with the confidence of someone who'd had his license longer than a few weeks.

"I'm thinking about things," Cally explained into the silence in the car.

"I recognize the signs. I'm just enjoying not be the cause of all of it for a change."

Cally looked up and glared briefly. "I like fighting with you, Tony," he said, nearly accusing.

"Oh, sure, babe, I promise to not be so good we never do it again, okay?"

"Fine," Cally said, and turned his attention back inward.

Tony noticed the car was running low on gas, so he got directions from the fancy voice activated computer that annoyed him and ignored Cally. He went inside the little kiosk to pay so he could consider the chocolate bar options.

"Canadian candy confuses me," he said to the clerk.

"Oh, I know," the boy said in the exact accent Cally had. "I keep some Chinese stuff under the counter, but you're not looking for that, I bet."

"What the hell is a Wonderbar?" Tony asked.

The clerk shrugged, "Sugar, one way or another."

"It's all sweet," Tony answered, adding the thing to his order. He tossed it in Cally's lap when he got in the car, and waited to feel sad or empty or something. Nothing happened, so he just drove home.

"You should have got me water," Cally told him in the elevator, mouth half stuck together with caramel.

Tony chose to risk laughing right at him since he looked so ridiculous.

The view inside Cally's place was still arresting, and Tony spent some time watching the activity on the water, and he left Cally to his own devices.

"Jeremy wants to have dinner tonight, you want to go?" Cally said, wandering out of the bedroom.

"Sure."

"Really, you're sure?"

"Yeah, Cally, I liked him. If you don't want to go, though..."

"No, it's fine. We can. I'm nervous about Pete coming, and I need to spend so much time thinking about what happens in practice, but we can go."

Tony didn't know what to say. Cally had always been a bit moody and prone to turning inward at times. Tony had always just waited him out, more of less patiently, depending on his own life stresses.

"We should sit," Cally commanded.

Tony looked up at him, dressed in popsicle colours, freckles standing out on his face, pink tinge on his nose from the sun. Fearless in the face of everything he didn't remember. "Is there going to be snuggling?" Tony asked.

Cally whooped with laughter and pulled him roughly down onto the sofa and proved that mauling might be more what he had in mind. "I need you with me," Cally said once he'd allowed Tony to sit up mostly straight, and approximately dressed.

He was pressed tight to Cally's body and overheating from several causes. "I'll be there when Pete shows up," Tony said, relaxing into Cally, like he would the summer sun.

"I know."

Tony stayed where he was until Cally commanded he get up and get dressed for dinner.

Jeremy had picked a trendy looking restaurant that looked like all the worst of California and Manhattan rolled into one.

"They have meat, don't worry," Jeremy said when the waiter had left them after promising to send the beer sommelier over.

Tony raised his brows, and Jeremy looked calmly back at him. "Fine, yes, I was worried," Tony growled.

"We had to make a vegan meal in class," Cally said.

"How did that go?" Tony asked.

"Okay. I made chili, which Chef said is the easiest thing ever to do without meat, and maybe shouldn't count, but he admitted it was really good. It's good practice on using your imagination."

"Can you make chili with meat?" Tony asked.

Cally nodded. "I was thinking when we go home, I'd make a big pot, take a photo to put up on instagram and see how long it takes the boys to show up."

"You're planning on going back soon?" Jeremy asked. The question sounded innocent, but Tony wasn't sure yet if Jeremy was just Eileen's agent or if he was truly Cally's friend.

The beer waiter interrupted and tried to talk to Tony, drawn to the oldest guy there, which happened to him all the time. Jeremy rescued him and translated it all into something like English, and Tony made his choice.

Cally blithely ordered a glass of wine and asked for water on the side and grinned at Tony. "Training," he said and patted his totally flat stomach that was encased in a suit of blue linen Tony had never seen before. The blue was almost dull by Cally standards, but his shirt and pocket square were contrasting shades of purple that made it impossible to look away.

"I miss home," Cally said to Jeremy. "You know that. And Tony has to go back to work, but he's being cagey on telling me when."

"I'm not being cagey," Tony said. He looked over at Jeremy watching him closely and tried not to feel like he was on trial. He liked Jeremy, and he wanted to keep it that way. "I need to talk to Pete and make some decisions. But either way, I have to be back for the end of June, for sure."

"Either way," Cally said, sourly. "There is only one way."

"Cally," Tony said. "Come on."

"Fine, we won't fight in front of Jeremy."

"Don't mind me," Jeremy said.

"No, we'll do it later," Cally said, with a look at Tony that was not subtle.

"Yeah, okay, maybe you should wait," Jeremy said, clearly amused.

They talked about nothing important for most of the meal. Jeremy told a funny story about taking Cally to get his hair cut, and Cally talked about some of the things he'd seen in Vancouver. He sounded like a tourist who'd had a good holiday but was ready to go home.

Tony felt relieved and wasn't proud of that. He should have trusted Cally more. But he'd been convinced Cally's family would find a way to keep him. They'd obviously tried.

"Cally, do you want desert?" Tony asked.

"No, but you guys can," he said, patting his stomach again.

"This is a bit weird," Jeremy said to Tony, "hearing you call him Cally. But should I?"

Cally shrugged. "I'm used to my family wanting to call me Sean. Doctors do too. But the guys don't."

"And Tony doesn't," Jeremy said.

"Kids don't either," Cally added.

Jeremy smiled, looked a little sad. "Did you notice, Tony, that Cally's parents get a little weird when he talks about your kids?"

"They're weird about everything," Tony said.

Cally stared at him. "Are you drunk?"

"No," he said, laughing, "Maybe you're right, and I should be more up front about this. I get how they are, why they're weird. But Josh especially is setting himself up for a broken heart."

"Sean's not coming back," Jeremy said and nodded. "I told Eileen that."

"How did that go?" Tony asked, trying not to put a tone on it and failing.

"I think she knows it in some way. I think she hasn't accepted it."

"I feel like I'm being judged," Cally said. "Like, okay, when Brad tells me to do shit, or, Jeremy, you tell me how to be gay at the right times, I feel like that's coaching. It's fine. I like it."

"Wait," Tony said, "Jeremy is your gay coach?"

Jeremy laughed, but Cally didn't find it funny, he just nodded vigorously. "You're really bad at it, Tony."

"At what?" Tony said.

"At telling me how I can act, what to save for with friends. You just do it. Jeremy thinks about it, and he can explain it."

Tony looked at Jeremy and tilted his head. "I know guys who played the game great who can't coach for shit, so I guess I get that. You don't seem like the guy who's going to try to make Cally ashamed of himself."

"No," Jeremy said, shaking his head. "No way. But he needs to stay safe or maybe private is a better way to say it. Decide who he wants to let in."

"Jeremy is actually worse than you for telling me I have to decide stuff for myself," Cally said.

"Oh, well, someone is finally worse than me," Tony groused.

"Tony," Cally said, and then softer, "Tony, no one is better than you, though, no one."

"Wow," Jeremy said.

Tony took Cally's hand and searched for something to say, but all he could do was watch Cally grow smugly proud that he'd nailed the romantic line until Tony was nearly laughing again. He glanced over at Jeremy, who was looking at him, not Cally. "See how smug?" he said, tilting his head at Cally.

"Probably justified," Jeremy said.

"Probably," Tony agreed.

It was a good meal, a good conversation, and Jeremy never brought up his idea for going to a club, so maybe he thought Tony was past all that. Tony agreed, but for Cally, he'd have suffered.

"You like Jeremy," Cally said when they were home.

"Yeah, I do. I'm a little jealous he can tell you things I don't know how to explain, but I'm glad you found him."

"I always need you, Tony, don't worry." Cally frowned down at his phone. "Pete says he's coming tomorrow to watch the scrimmage and then he wants to go out to dinner the next day."

"Just Pete?" Tony asked.

"He doesn't say."

Tony checked his phone for a message and found nothing. He had to concede he couldn't complain that Pete was leaving him alone like he'd asked.

"Tony, I'm worried about this scrimmage, but I'm also mad at you."

Tony looked up and smiled at Cally's frowning face. He was more anxious than angry, Tony thought. "Babe, I told you how I feel. I want you to have your shot, so can we put this scrimmage on the front burner and me and my decision on the back?"

"So you admit there is a decision," Cally said. "Good, because you shouldn't just say no to this without me saying what I think. And what I think is that you don't need to baby me any more than my mom and dad do."

"I'm not doing that. I'm not. I'm getting the hell out of your way."

Cally stared at him for a moment and then went and flopped down on the sofa. He still had his suit on, and he looked oddly like himself but dressed up like some other guy at the same time. Tony yanked off his own jacket and then remembered he didn't have a lot of clothes with him and restrained himself from just tossing it somewhere.

"I don't see how you could ever be in my way," Cally said. "I don't. But I feel like you're putting me in front of you or something. That's not how it's supposed to be, is it?"

"Babe," Tony said. "The world isn't how it's supposed to be. Maybe we should have had this fight with Jeremy there to explain things."

"I want you to be happy!" Cally shouted at him.

Tony had to try hard not to laugh. "I can think of a way," he said instead.

"Don't try to distract me with sex, Tony, that won't work."

"Oh, okay," Tony said. He was well aware he'd never met a bet he didn't want to win ― his oldest kid wasn't a stranger to him. He wandered off like he was going to hang up his jacket. He did that. He also hung up his trousers and put his shirt aside for the cleaners and shucked his underwear and tossed them in the basket in Cally's closet.

He had started working out more to keep up with Cally, and then he'd started working off his stress and anxiety in the gym too. And at the end of the season, he was fucking ripped. He sauntered out to the living room and stood looking at the lights on the water, the lines of traffic off in the distance where he could see a main road. He was posing, more or less, and he didn't glance down at Cally, just listened to the small noises that said he wasn't sitting very still while Tony acted like he was totally cool, which he wasn't.

"Okay, fine, you win," Cally said. He stood up and marched over, grabbing Tony's bare wrist on the way by, and he towed his prize to bed. He acted like he'd been the one demanding satisfaction, and he was smug when he got it.

Tony had got what he'd been asking for, so he didn't complain.


	21. Chapter 21

The arena Brad had found for the weekly scrimmage was closer to Cally's place than Brad's, so it was newer, with bigger stands and more amenities. Tony had driven Cally in early enough that he could hang out with Caleb for a while, get geared up, work off the nerves a little.

Tony sat up high at about centre ice opposite the benches where he was used to lurking for practices when he didn't want to step on Craig's toes. When he wanted to be an ass about it, he sat right behind the Cubs bench.

He shouldn't have been surprised when he saw Josh come in, but he was a little. Cally hadn't mentioned that his father came around very often.

Josh, saw him and climbed the concrete stairs to come and sit a few seats down the row. "Tony," Josh said.

Tony nodded at him, and lifted his phone, "Catching up on email."

"Oh, right."

"You know Pete's coming, right?"

"Sean said that, yeah."

Tony nodded and went back to what he was doing. Jay had spontaneously sent him a list of names and asked for his opinion. Tony looked them up and found most of them to be draft-age guys, so he sent back something rude about how all teenagers were bad news. Jay responded with a second list that was mostly guys Tony had seen once or twice on opposing teams with the Cubs, so Tony played along and gave him one line answers on each.

Jay came back with the word 'interesting'.

Tony wasn't sure if Jay was trying to be friends, taking a survey, or giving Tony an advanced-level job interview. He spent a few minutes imagining the day when a guy like Jay was the AGM instead of just the guy giving advice to someone like Pete. Maybe Tony would be retired by then. He could hope, anyway.

He saw Pete coming, and stood up, startling Josh, who had been staring at his phone in rapt attention. Tony noticed the lower seats had filled up a little with what looked like families. There were no sign of scouts or press anywhere, but that seemed like it was too good to last. 

Pete made it to the top of the stairs and turned and surveyed the view for a second before he came down the row below Tony and Josh. "Tony," Pete said, clasping his hand and slapping his arm. "How is this vacation of yours going?"

"Great, until I end up back in a fucking rink, Pete. Do you know Cally's dad?" Tony indicated Josh and let them introduce themselves and chat for a minute.

"Your wife isn't here?" Pete asked.

"Donna said she'd stay home so no one felt inhibited in their language," Josh told him.

Pete laughed. "My wife is still in California. I'd hoped she could come up on this trip, but the house sale is taking too long. We got a good place in New Haven, though." Pete looked toward the ice, and Tony followed his gaze to see some guys warming up while a few others brought out pucks and the nets. Pete sat down and took out an ordinary notebook and a pen, the same sort of thing Tony used while watching practices or games.

Brad was down there on the ice playing as the ref, the linesman and the coach. Cally had said he sometimes flipped the players around to get a better matchup, and that the teams were most of a couple of high-level adult men's teams plus a few other ringers called in from outside Brad's practice group.

"Hey Pete," Tony said. Down on the ice, Cally, bent over and gliding slowly with his stick across his legs was talking to a guy in a similar plain-white jersey. "Watch the guy on the opposite wing to Cally a little bit."

Pete turned around and lifted his chin. "What's going on?"

"Nothing, just watch the guy."

"Nothing, okay, Tony, sure." Pete sounded pleased, like he'd got his way, and Tony wanted to burst that bubble, but telling Pete he figured the kid was more Cubs material than Lions was premature. He wasn't actually sure about that. He had never wanted to be a scout, and didn't have illusions he was good at it.

The players got sorted out into lines, and the guys not starting the game filled the benches. Cally slid into place on one side of the centre ice circle while Caleb had his back to Tony on the near side. The centre was a guy Tony didn't know, but he just needed to be basically competent. Cally was the point of this exercise, and Tony didn't take his eyes off him.

Cally didn't sit on the bench much. The pace wasn't enough for a guy in his condition, or Caleb's, to need a lot of shifts off. They double shifted with another centre and played longer shifts than anyone ever would in a real game.

Cally was occasionally hopeless, like he'd lost touch with what they were doing and was lost, but he was also occasionally breathtaking in how good he was. Caleb talked to him a lot on their short stays on the bench. Cally listened hard, nodded a lot. He was very dialed in, from what Tony could see.

On the ice, it was so strange. Even with the warning Brad had given him that Cally's game was shaping up differently, Tony was a little surprised. He was too big to play just an agility game in the offensive zone, so he wasn't perfectly impersonating a smaller winger, but Tony kept feeling like he was watching a man who made the choices Tony would make himself. Tony glanced over at Josh, also watching intently and wondered if everyone was going to think this new style was Tony's doing.

Cally was faster, too, Tony would put money on it. He streaked up the ice and took a pass and rifled it home, leaving everyone behind him. The next shift, he was the hard man banging in the corner one second and the smooth winger skating circles around the guys who couldn't hope to defend against him the next.

Pete turned around and said, "Jesus, Tony, this all looks familiar."

Tony grimaced at him, but left that argument for another time.

The holes in Cally's game were obvious. Everything he'd learned the hard way about playing away from the puck and making smart choices defensively was gone. Brad, Tony realized, was trying to give Cally an impressive enough offensive game to make him worth it without all that. The old Cally had been seen as more of a tough guy who could score, and this version was shaping up to be a scorer who was tough. It fit the modern game better. It fit who the Lions were saying they wanted to be, but hadn't succeeded in becoming.

Russians, Tony thought, watching Cally use his speed to avoid an oncoming checker instead of just taking it. They might understand this new man. Tony ran the roster of the Cubs in his mind and beyond Jonas, who got Cally better than anyone, they were missing the right kind of man to put with him. That could be fixed.

Tony ignored the game, and looked up the kid the Lions had drafted two years before. He was due to hit the Cubs that fall. Canadian, of course, Tony noted with a frown, when he had the kid's bio up. He was agile, fast and too small to be a centre, everyone said. Tony looked at Caleb, not a huge man, and the no-name centre that Brad had put between Cally and Caleb. The guy could pass, he didn't do anything dumb, he didn't do anything much at all.

Tony queued up some highlights of the kid who was too small and watched him do a lot of things. No one would fuck with him with Cally on the ice. Assuming he still had the desire to use his toughness in that way.

Tony watched some more. "He needs a more violent opposition," he said to Pete when Cally finally hit the bench the next time.

Pete nodded. "Has he got the balls for it still?"

Tony ignored the spike of annoyance. Pete had no fucking idea the balls it took to live Cally's life. This is why you didn't coach the ones you loved. Or make roster decisions for their benefit. You lost perspective. He wanted Caleb. He could snow Pete into signing the kid. He could use his position, whatever the hell it was, and he could get Cally an ally on the Cubs ice better than Jonas the weirdo.

The Cubs was right where Cally was headed. At least for a while. He needed real games, real coaching, real teammates who all had the balls. Tony looked at his phone. He needed Ranger Belmont at centre. Who the hell named their kid Ranger, anyway?

Tony shoved his phone in his pocket and tried to watch dispassionately. He failed. His heart pounded whenever Cally lost his way, and he was ready to stand up and cheer when Cally got the puck and did something magical with it. Maybe the feeling would fade, and Tony would get used to it. He'd stood up in the owner's box and watched Cally play for the Lions a few times, not often. He had avoided the place after he'd moved on to work for Joe. He'd done fine watching the guy he was fucking play the game because he'd told himself that was all their relationship was at the time.

He looked over at Josh, who was watching intently, frowning once in a while. What did he see, Tony wondered. His teenage wonder of a son who was gone forever? The brand new man who was learning to play a style of game a decade newer?

Russians, Tony kept thinking. He wondered where they worked out in the summer. Russia, he supposed. "Pete, you still keep in touch with Vladdy?" Tony said in the lull while they cleaned up the ice well enough for another period of action.

Pete stood up and stretched. He turned around, glancing once at Josh, silently watching them. "What are you plotting?"

"Fuck off, it's just a question."

"Last I heard, Vladdy was living it up in New York, enjoying his millions." Tony nodded. "And coaching his kid," Pete added, and the look on his face could only be described as a smirk.

"How old," Tony said.

"Teenager. He's a hotshot. Going to be the real thing, Jay says."

"Right, his college thing. Project, whatever."

"He told you about that?"

"Yeah, Jay's okay," Tony said. "Thinks he knows everything but isn't totally full of shit."

Pete gave Tony a long look. "I thought you'd hate those guys. I heard there was a thing with you and those guys in Hartford or someplace."

Tony grinned at him. "It was nothing."

"Yeah, sure. Sure. You like to poke people until they take a swing don't you? I fucking remember that one time I damn near broke your nose."

Tony did too. And he remembered why he'd been in a mood all the time in those days. "I've mellowed," he said.

"I want to talk to you, Tony. Seriously talk. And Cally."

"Pete," Tony sighed, "you're here for him." Tony pointed at the ice. "I don't figure. I'm just a guy in the stands watching. We should have dinner tomorrow, though. You and Cally talk."

Pete shook his head. "This isn't over. I'm not dropping it, but call me and we'll have dinner. Look, I have to talk to my wife about the house, and I have a few calls to make. I'm not missing much by ducking out early, so you tell Cally I came, I saw, and now we need to talk, okay?" Pete didn't wait for an answer, he just sidled down the row of seats and left.

"He's made up his mind," Josh said.

"I think so," Tony answered. "So have I, to be honest."

"And?"

"And I'll tell Cally what I think, no one else."

"Fair enough." Josh looked unhappy, so Tony had to figure he'd seen what was obvious too. Pete wasn't putting Cally in the Lions lineup, not right away.

Tony drove Cally home in silence. When they'd got in the car, Tony had said, "I want to think, this time, babe, okay? We'll talk at home."

Cally was energized when they got home, like he could play another three periods. Tony was tired from too much sitting in the stands and too much thinking.

"So," Cally said, pacing in the living room, drinking his special formula of recovery drink that he made himself.

"So, babe," Tony said, opting for whisky over virtue. He took a sip and turned to find Cally staring at him impatiently. "Sit down," Cally commanded.

Tony deliberately took a chair opposite where Cally had sat, and he deliberately ignored his knowing smirk too. "You're swiss cheese."

Cally raised his brows and then nodded. "Yes, that's it. I think there's fewer holes than there were."

"I bet. And there will be less as you keep on. But if I'm Pete, I'm asking when that is, and if you can't say October first, he doesn't want you at all. That's how he has to see it."

"You could be Pete someday," Cally said.

Tony sighed at him. "Can we stay off that topic until we finish this one? I have a few thoughts about how you should move forward. First, you need to play against tougher guys. Not just better players, but guys who won't hesitate to challenge you physically. Violently. But you need a higher level of coaching too."

"I like Brad okay, but Caleb is better at explaining stuff."

"Babe, you should be asking yourself if you want this. Because I can draw you a map of how to get to where you have a chance, but the drive has to come from you, the desire has to be in you."

"What you said before about having a chance to find guys who can read my mind. And that it might break my heart. I keep thinking about all of that, but I don't feel like I know what it means to have my heart broken."

Lucky you, Tony thought, uncharitably. He felt guilty immediately and vowed not to be the one to teach him. He said, bluntly,  "You don't know what the hell to do when the other team does something stupid sometimes either. You don't pounce on mistakes. You aren't ruthless. You are very, very good at scoring though. I wonder if you're better?"

"Why would I be better?" Cally asked, wrinkling his nose.

"You don't remember every time some shit coach told you not to do something, or all the times you thought you shouldn't try something because the coach might not like it. Now, you need smart men to play against to find out if what you got works in the real world. But you are not the same player you were, and Pete saw that too. That's your in. You are exactly what a modern team drafts for now. But when you were a teenager, like in that video Josh likes, you were a battering ram with no brains between your ears."

"Tony, this means playing on the Cubs doesn't it?"

"Yeah, it does." Tony emptied his glass.

"Caleb said I should be insulted by that, but I'm not, I want to ― Tony I really like learning things, finding out what I can do. I love playing," Cally stood up and paced some more. "The speed is incredible. It's like being free, and I am good. I like that I'm good. I didn't know that would feel so amazing. Like when sex goes right."

"You didn't tell the guys that did you?" Tony asked, smiling.

Cally glared at him. "Jeremy explained why straight guys get weird if they have to think about you fucking another guy. Like even guys who are okay with it in theory. I think I get my dad better now. I think it's sad, though, that no one will ever be proud of me for bagging a hot man like you."

Tony spluttered in laughter, but Cally's serious tone hadn't been a joke setup. He meant it.

"You are," Cally said stubbornly, "I think people should think I'm lucky. If Mom and Dad decide Seth is good enough for Eileen, they'll think she's lucky. They'll be proud, I can tell that. I can tell that's why she was hiding him in case they didn't."

"So you're saying Seth's on trial, and he might pass, but I'm an automatic failure no matter what?"

"They think that," Cally said. "Yeah, I think they do. Tony, I want to go home. Draw your map. Let me try. Let me be with you where I belong, and we'll try together."

"On the Cubs? Sure. Why the hell not? But first we need to have dinner with Pete tomorrow. So figure out where, somewhere we can talk, and then we'll figure out what to say to him."

"I can cook," Cally said whirling around, the light of desire in his eyes. "This place is small though, so should we go to Mom and Dad's? Should Pete see me with them?" Cally frowned.

"Might be better than here, where he might start thinking about you and me living here."

"What Jeremy was saying, yeah. Also, I don't want to go to a restaurant where I have to be careful about what I say."

"What do you want to say, babe?" Tony asked, getting worried. Cally looked like he was ready to go take on the world.

"I want to make sure Pete knows that I want to follow your map, and to try, and that if he wants to put me on the injured list for the insurance money, he's going to have a fight on his hands, I won't just go away."

Tony blinked at him. This was exactly why he couldn't work for the Lions if Cally was going to play for them. "You've talked to your agent?"

"Yeah, and Dad, and other guys. And I don't know if that's what Pete's thinking, but I want him to know it's not going to work. So could I make the Cubs right now?"

"Yeah, I think so. And it's only June, Cally. If we go home, find the right guys in New York to work with, maybe we should just rent a place there, like this one, and we'll dig into it, make it happen."

There was only one way that was going to work. Tony was going to have to quit, walk away from Pete's offer and from Joe, give Cally his year and then figure his own future out. If Cally could make the Lions by then, Tony could talk to Pete again. He got up and got another whisky while Cally talked excitedly about what to cook in between texts to his mom, setting it all up. It was hard, would be harder, to give up his job with Joe, but he couldn't imagine it any other way when he looked at Cally, so happy, so excited, so ready to try. He had to give him that. Get out of his way and let him go.

"We are talking about the other thing," Cally said ominously. "You can't duck me forever."

"Yeah, sure," Tony said. "Babe. You're getting me all wound up here, watching you march around like you're going out to conquer the world."

"Distracting me with sex again?" Cally said, and then he grinned. "It worked too, come on," he demanded, and Tony went along with him, happy to put off the moment when he had to tell Cally what he'd decided.


	22. Chapter 22

"Cally! Seriously, man, I am not your fucking kitchen slave!"

"Language," four people chorused at once.

Tony glared at them all. "Jesus. Do you have a swear jar? I'll just put a goddamn thousand in it right now."

Cally turned from the counter and held out his hand imperiously. He had flour on his left cheek, something spattered on his shirt, and his hair was curly from the humidity in the kitchen. Donna was tucked in behind him with her hand over her mouth, and her eyes said she was laughing. Eileen and Seth were at the table peeling the potatoes as they'd been ordered to by Chef Arrogant.

Tony never met a bluff he didn't want to call so he got out his wallet, sorted through the cash and laid a stack of coloured bills in Cally's hand. Cally handed it to his mother and said, "Give it to some good cause."

Seth stared at them both. "You have a thousand in cash in your wallet?" he asked in surprise.

Tony shrugged. "Funny money I got at the airport ATM. Near enough to that much. Cally has to pay my way now, though, I'm tapped out."

"You either go watch TV with my dad or you do as your told," Cally told him and then returned to whatever he was doing to a big chunk of meat.

Tony dug around in the bag on the counter for the whisky he'd brought over and made to leave. He said over his shoulder, "We'll watch Pete in his glory days. Josh can tell him later how great he is. Never hurts to buff a guy's ego."

"Don't drink too much," Donna called after him.

Tony found some glasses in a sideboard in the living room and took three with him. He gave Josh Joe's line about no ice until you hit the big leagues, and they sat in silence while some baseball highlights played.

"That was some scrimmage," Josh said over a commercial.

"Yup."

"This de Silva guy, what's he really like? You and him, you talk like old pals, but there's something else there. Do you trust him?"

"Look up some more of his highlights. Him and me and Vladdy Makarenko. Watch him and you'll see what kind of guy he is."

Josh did as Tony suggested and they watched a bit of his early good old days. Tony had been married still, young still, good at the game, really fucking good. And happy most of the time, as far as he had known to be.

"He's smart," Josh said. "Clever. Knows how to play to your strength. He's almost using you."

"He is smart, and a tough man. Hard, you know? Like a Canadian is when they're done being nice to you."

Josh glanced over at him and gave him a wry look. "Lots of American kids play out here, you know. They're all the same."

"Hmmm."

"Now that de Silva is protecting his team's money, looking to be a big man making deals, not dishing out pucks to you guys who can score, is he going to think Sean's on his team or not?"

"That is a very good question," Tony said. "I think what we want to do is make it so he sees Cally as a gamble he can win big on, PR-wise, and on the ice, and that he'll be worth his contract in a year or so."

"And we do that how?"

"I think Cally has to. But I want to talk to him straight, and make sure he knows that this business here this spring, this was the baby steps. Now it's time to get serious."

"And if he wants to cut Sean out of the picture?" Josh asked.

"Then we smile and offer him cake and call Cally's agent when he leaves."

"I don't know, this is so alien to me, all this business thinking mixed in with the game. When I played, I went where I was told, did what I was told, and played as hard as I could."

"Nothing wrong with that," Tony said, "That's how the game is. But when it's over, the itch to keep winning doesn't just go away."

"So how did you end up working for a team?"

Tony glanced over at him. He seemed mellowed out, or at least less prone to frowning at everything. "When I played," Tony said, "I was good at shooting my mouth off. I was the guy who got camera time. I could tell the press a good story, lighten things up, and then when it was time to be all serious about how hard we had to work, I could do that too. When I was done playing, the team just kept putting me on camera. Website stuff by then. I worked for Donny Albright."

"Oh, shit, that guy. Donna hates that guy, and I'm not sure I know why."

"Donna's a good judge of character is why. I was getting tired of him and the job, and me and Joe, who runs the Cubs, we go way back. It was his wife that offered me the job." Tony laughed at the memory. "She got fed up with us talking hockey over dinner one night and asked Joey why he didn't just pay me to come tell him that stuff in the office. Joey jumped at the idea. She's one of a kind." He smiled fondly. "Cally loves her." Tony sipped his drink, and thought about those days, the lonely months before he'd met Cally when he'd haunted Joe's dinner table. "You know, Josh, all that I just told you? Cally doesn't know any of that anymore."

"Does he remember you at all?" Josh asked, and he looked strange, like the light of hope that had been there for so long was gone.

"No, Josh, not a thing."

"How do you live with that?"

Tony shrugged. "Got no choice. I don't know, I just do. I like him, though, Josh. Who he is now. He asks sometimes, 'tell me a story you never told him,' and you know what he means by 'him'. He means who he was before. That's fucking weird when he talks like that."

Josh nodded emphatically.

"So the thing is, Josh, I was 30-something when we met. I'd been married, had a family, had been in relationships with men. I had a whole life he knows nothing about. He'd had some boyfriend in KC too. He'd had a life, been a person I never knew. So this is like that, but not, too. I don't know."

"Axworthy said once that's why he was traded," Josh said quietly.

"Far as I know, that's true. Cally can't tell us for sure now, so I've never told him that story either."

"That's wrong, that's just so wrong, what that team did. And I worry it will happen again. I know people are ― they think how they think, and he's at risk."

"Gentlemen," Pete de Silva said from the doorway. Eileen was in the shadows behind him, having shown him in, obviously, but she left as he said, "Is that glass for me?"

Josh got up and bustled around making Pete feel welcome. Josh had never done that for Tony, but then Tony wasn't supposed to be that kind of guest. 

When Pete had a glass in hand and was comfortable, he said, "Is this true that Cally is cooking?"

"It's his thing now," Tony said. "You won't be disappointed."

Pete looked unconvinced, but he knew how to handle a player's family, so he focused on Josh. "I talk to your son, Josh, all the time. So it's good I'm getting to know you. It's been very interesting getting to know him, and I want to do right by him. He's on our team, but he's a friend to me as well."

Josh nodded. "We all want what's best for him."

Pete nodded like that was settled and said, "I looked that kid up, Tony. I got Jay on the case too. You could have just shot him an email on it, you know."

"Joe, you mean."

Pete groaned and slumped back in his chair. "You'd think I'd be used to you and your goddamned hard head, Grenier. Fuck! Stop being fucking stubborn about this."

Josh looked startled at the change in tone, but he kept his mouth shut, and watched the show.

"It's not stubbornness, Pete, and you know all that, so I'm not going to show you that drill again, we both know you can do it. You're here to talk to Cally, anyway, right?"

"You are sitting right there," Pete said, pointing. "I'm fucking talking to you. Jesus. Jay says this Caleb kid is the real thing. He also says if you say a guy is interesting, I should always tell him. So you have the nerd seal of approval, by the way. No one ever fucking gets that. I don't get that. They shake their heads sadly when they think I'm not looking."

"I'll shake my head sadly right to your face, Pete, you know that." Tony smirked at him, but his heart sank at the look of triumph on Pete's face.

"That is exactly why I want to fucking hire you, you dumb, Italian fucking asshole."

"Wow, Pete. You haven't accused me of being Italian in that tone of voice in years."

"Like the French half is any better," Pete grumbled. "How's your damn kids, anyway? Doing okay?"

"Sure. Patty had a good year on the ice, and Andy had an eye-opening experience trying to level up. He's working out with a special coach this summer with one of his boys on the team. Meanwhile, Patty seems to want to be a career C student, and Andy is too fucking smart to be a Grenier."

"Sounds idyllic. My oldest is 13 and she speaks a foreign language even my wife doesn't understand." 

Tony smirked at him. 

"Fuck off, Tony. I don't want to hear how it gets worse. Okay, fine. I'll behave here. We'll have a nice dinner, and I won't argue with you."

"Remember that restaurant in DC we got thrown out of?" Tony said.

"Oh, shit, Tony, that was a hell of night. We're both lucky we weren't arrested."

"Dinner's ready," Donna said from the doorway.

Pete jumped a little, and Josh looked startled. Neither of them had noticed her coming or knew how much she'd heard.

They followed Donna to the dining room and found a perfectly laid table and Cally looking like he'd been relaxing all afternoon in a clean, bright blue shirt and dress pants that made him look taller than he was. Cally seated their honoured guest at the end of the table opposite Josh, and Tony got to sit between Eileen and Donna, while Cally had Seth between himself and Pete's end of the table. Seth had a very good bland smile, putting him in the buffer zone was a good plan.

"Tony said you cooked this," Pete said, indicating the roast on a platter and smiling at Cally like it was a joke.

Cally nodded vigorously. "I did. Most of it. The beef is grass fed ― a guy I know got it for me. It's restaurant quality, so, give the cow some credit, not just me. I like how it turned out, though." Cally took charge of serving the roast and they passed the vegetables around like any family meal.

Pete cut off a bit of his slice of the roast and chewed. "This really is good."

"Eat your vegetables," Cally said pointing with his knife at the three choices. He'd made the beans again. So Tony took the opportunity to scoop some more.

At Pete's prompting, Cally told the story of his cooking classes. He mentioned smoothly how much he'd impressed the chef with how fast he learned. And then Cally said bluntly, "But Chef Wong said I'm the weirdest guy he's ever met. The things I don't know kept surprising him."

Pete nodded thoughtfully. "That's how it looked to me in your scrimmage."

"It's true," Cally said, not sugar coating it, and Tony watched Josh frowning at his plate. "Brad can tell you too, so you should talk to him. But there's a lot I need to fill in. I think, Brad thinks, and maybe Tony too, he hasn't said much, that there's some stuff there that's really good."

"You surprised me a few times."

Cally just nodded at that and started telling Pete about the way he'd done the potatoes. The conversation flowed around the table about the food, the weather, all the normal things you filled time with.

"My mom made pie for desert," Cally told Pete when everyone was finished eating, and then he turned and beamed at Donna who looked a bit overwhelmed by his enthusiastic attention. "Her pie is great. I'm going to bring it over."

Seth got up and helped Cally clear the plates with a deftness that gave away how he'd paid his way through school.

Cally served the pies with a lot less grace and said, "Pete, you get the first piece because you're a guest."

The pie was distributed, and Cally took his first bite with all the attention of a wine taster on a new vintage. Fortified with that one taste, Cally set down his fork and looked seriously at Pete. "I know I can't play in the NHL," he said.

Donna got very still, and her smile became forced. Josh was glaring at everyone, but he didn't open his mouth to talk. Tony forked up some more pie to let everyone know he was too busy eating to say anything.

"Right now," Pete said. "I know, I can tell. But ever?"

"I still don't know. I keep telling you that."

"I don't think you lie to me, Cally."

Cally shook his head. "No. Maybe I shouldn't be too honest with you, Pete, I don't know. But I heard you yelling with Tony downstairs." Cally grinned. "I know what that means."

Pete frowned, "You guys could hear that? That was just me and Tony being old pals, sorry if we got loud."

"I'm always too loud," Cally said, casually, like he'd just accepted the censure his parents couldn't keep off their faces most of the time and didn't care. "I know Tony respects you. He wouldn't bother to yell if he didn't. So I'll tell you what we talked about, Tony and I."

"Tony talks to someone, then," Pete said.

Tony looked up at him and raised his glass in a toast and took a long drink, still too busy to talk.

"When he feels like it," Cally said darkly. "I told you before that I needed to work out, learn some things and then see where I was, and now I know where I am. I can see how far away from a real player I am. But I know I want to try. That's the other thing I didn't know for sure before. But I know I want to try to make pie as good as my mom and to play hockey as good as I can. Me, Cally, who I am now."

"You need more training than Brad Sangster can give you," Pete said, maybe missing the point Cally was making.

"I know. Tony and I are going home soon. And we're going to find someone and maybe stay in New York for the summer and really work on it."

"Tony is?" Pete said, quickly, cutting off the objection Josh looked ready to make. Pete looked between the two of them, and Tony tried to look as blandly friendly as Seth could. Pete wasn't buying it. "You've been claiming all along that Cally is off limits, you can't take my job offer because Cally is on the team, and now suddenly, you're going to coach him?"

"No," Tony said. "No, I'm not. I'm going to use my connections to find him the guys who can. We're going to make a plan to focus on what he needs to add to that amazing offensive game we got a peek at in the scrimmage. And then we'll see."

"Vladdy."

Tony nodded. "Might work."

"Who is Vladdy?" Cally said.

"Vladimir Makarenko," Pete said, "Guy we used to play with, he lives in New York now and coaches his kid and counts his money. He's got the right game for you. Fast, smart on the puck, passes, shoots ― all good. Tougher than Tony, smarter than me."

"Sounds Russian," Cally said.

"Yeah, that a problem?" Pete asked.

Cally shook his head. "Nope. I can learn more bad words, surprise the guys on the team." He grinned like that was the best perk a hockey career could offer.

"Okay," Pete said, turning to Tony, pie forgotten on his plate. "This all sounds great. You're making a plan, you're finding him the right guys to work with, and look at me not surprised you picked the right kind of guy immediately. So, Tony, why the hell won't you come to work for me and do that all the time? That's what I want you to do!"

"Good question," Cally said, and then he dug into his pie.

Tony kicked him under the table, and Cally just smiled at him around his fork. "I haven't changed my mind, Pete," Tony said. "Cally gets his chance, and I'm helping him out, of course I am, but I'm too close to the situation to be his coach, and I don't want that. Cally needs a clear lane to make his run."

"When you finish up this training and the season starts, do you think we're putting him on the team?" Pete demanded

"No, not right away," Tony said frowning. "But we'll know if he can make the jump. I hope we'll know."

"Right, so I'm going to put him on the Cubs, Tony, so explain to me how this is going to work?"

Tony sighed. "Me and Joey will work something out."

"What does that mean?" Pete said.

"That means that maybe I'll take a year off," Tony said, "and then as the season goes, we'll figure it out."

Tony tried to ignore everyone staring at him, particularly Cally. When he wouldn't look up and meet his eyes, Cally kicked him, which was fair enough. Tony had started it.

"Boys," Donna said, with a sigh. She was between Tony and Pete and was quietly listening to them, but had her focus on her son, who wasn't keeping his emotions off his face. He really didn't know how.

"Sorry, Mom," Cally said.

"Ma'am," Tony added in chagrin.

"You're set on this aren't you?" Pete demanded. "Tony, honest to god. I have a team to run. I have to make this happen now. If it's not you, I'll find someone else, and we are going to put guys in place on the Cubs. There are big changes coming, and I want you in on it. But I can't wait on you."

"I know that, Pete," Tony said. "I'm not asking you for anything."

"This is not how I expected this evening to go," Pete said. "Look, Cally, when you get set up in New York or New Haven, whichever, give me a call and we'll talk then. I want to watch you some more, see if we've got guys we should be setting you to work with. Our skills guy might not be right, but I wonder about our skating guy."

"Sure, we can do that," Cally said. "Did you want more pie?"

"No, no, and I need to get back to my hotel and find out how my wife is doing. There was a showing on the house today."

"Moving back east must be a big change for you," Donna said.

Pete talked houses and kids and finding schools with Donna and Josh for a few minutes and then politely made his excuses for not staying for an after-dinner drink.

"Call me if you come to your senses," Pete said to Tony as he left.

"I'm having another piece of pie," Cally said to Tony after they'd all settled back at the table. It sounded like a threat.

Tony wanted another glass of whisky, but he decided he could face up to whatever Cally wanted to say like a man.

Cally ate his pie in silence while the family cleared up around him. Tony stayed where he was, waiting. It was like having all the time in the world and knowing the biggest, meanest defencemen in the league had you lined up for a hit. After a while you just stopped dreading it.

"We're going in the living room and have coffee like civilized people," Donna said severely. "No hockey on TV, no hockey language, and no kicking."

Tony spread his hands, acting the innocent. He'd done it to a hundred refs in his life, he had the look down. She was not buying what he was selling.

Cally took his plate and fork to the sink, and Tony followed him. Cally poured a glass of water out of the tap and drank it down. "Go do what Mom says," he said, back to Tony. "I'm coming in a minute."

Tony did as he'd been told twice. He felt uneasy, the certainty of his decision eroding under his feet. Cally had to have his chance. That had to be the first priority. Tony sat in a chair no one else ever used, by the look of it, and he could see cars go by outside once in a while, lights flashing up towards the house as they took the curve in the street outside.

Donna served coffee and had a low voiced conversation with Eileen and Seth that Tony figured amounted to denial of the right to leave before Cally blew his top.

Cally came in, too big for the room, it seemed to Tony, and he hooked a big footstool into the middle of the floor with his foot, and he sat on it facing Tony, the judge in his courtroom. Tony's hackles rose, and his first impulse was to hit first, hard and fast.

Cally frowned and rubbed at his head, and then turned a look of confusion on Tony. "I don't understand. Explain it to me."

Tony sighed and closed his eyes. "Yeah, gimme a minute."

"Pete wants you for this job. He really wants you," Cally said.

Tony nodded and opened his eyes and sat up, looking Cally in the eye. "He does. He's been working on me for months."

"And you don't want it?" Cally said. "I don't think that's true."

"I almost said yes the first time, babe. This isn't easy for me."

"You should say yes."

"I can't, Cally," Tony said, voice rising despite his will to stop it. "I can't get in front of you. How could I? What kind of man am I if do that? You need to be able to trust me. I realized that when you said that about not knowing when people are lying to you. I have to be my best self, babe, because you can't call me on it if I'm not. Not yet."

"So," Cally said, "you think if you take this job, you'll make it so the team won't give me a chance?"

"We're asking them for a hell of a lot. We're asking them to pay you, to have most of your very big salary count to the salary cap, while you relearn how to play in the minors. And if it doesn't pan out, then they're stuck until your contract runs out in two years."

"And the team will think you're doing stuff to help me not them," Cally said, nodding. "But they need to trust you too. Shouldn't they trust you to not do that?"

"Cally, you have no idea how hard that would be not to do that. You know what would be good for you? Caleb. I could pull some strings, get him on the Cubs, get this kid the Lions drafted there too, and the three of you would be almost enough to move up as a line. I can see that in my damn head, babe."

"Why would that be bad?" Cally asked.

"Because it might not be the best thing for the team, and I don't think I'd be able to tell. I'm not sure I'm that good a man. Fuck it, I know I'm not."

"I hate the idea of you losing so I can win," Cally said, stubbornly. "I hate it. What kind of man am I, if I let you, Tony? What about that?"

"I ... Cally ― you get your shot, that's what I want more than anything."

"I do too! So why don't you take this job, Tony. Say yes. You can help all the guys and not just me. What's wrong with Caleb on the Cubs or maybe the Lions? I want the team to succeed too, you know. I want Jonesy and the Russians and everybody else to be happy and win lots."

"I have to be objective," Tony said.

Josh made a rude noise, and everyone turned to look at him.

"I think you're too objective," Josh said to Tony, stabbing the air with his finger, voice rising. "You tell me how that team is better with Sean off running some damn restaurant in New York City or some nonsense? Is that what they want, cut their losses? Cutting their nose off to spite their face. He's a fantastic player, a star. He was meant to be a star from when he was a little kid. If you want to help that damn team, make them see that. Maybe you don't believe that. That's what I think."

"Bullshit," Tony said, and he ignored Donna's sigh. "I saw that scrimmage, Josh. I see what's there, and it's very exciting. But this is uncharted waters. How the hell can I claim to know he'll make it? I can't be sure." Seth made a noise and shifted, and Tony looked at him and raised a brow. "Weigh in, kid. I'll listen to anyone."

"Okay. Uh. Isn't this a situation where you have to declare a conflict of interest and then let your boss decide. Mr de Silva seems like a decisive guy."

Donna nodded vigorously, and Tony frowned at them both. "My whole job would be a conflict of interest, which is what I've been trying to tell you all."

"Like that guy in KC whose brother coached in New York?" Josh said. "Or the GM whose nephew in running the team they like to trade with? What the hell is his name?"

Tony sighed and rubbed his face. Cally rose up off his supplicant's seat and stalked off, and Tony was struck again by how differently he moved. He considered the house they were in, its ordinary suburban size, and wondered if a guy like Cally was taught to act small, to fit in. This new man had no idea how much he dominated a room, he just did it. He had to learn how to do that on the ice.

Cally came back with the whisky bottle and gathered a fresh set of glasses.

Tony took what he was offered, and considered how to explain to Josh just how much Tony wasn't like those other guys. He understood where Josh was coming from. Josh wanted Tony to do everything to make it happen for Cally, and Tony wanted that as much as he wanted the job. He wanted it so much, he was surprised himself he hadn't just taken the strings Pete wanted to hand him and said fuck the consequences, he'd pull them whenever Cally needed him to.

"When I was thirteen," Tony said, "the guy that ran the elite hockey school in my little corner of the world was the brother of the guy who coached my team. If you were good with Coach, you were good with Gord too, and you got in."

"That's how it works," Josh said.

Tony nodded. "It's normal." He looked over at Cally and saw his face, saw the dawning comprehension, and waited until he looked down at the floor, biting his lip.

Tony wanted to be on the small loveseat Eileen was sitting on with Seth, tight together, fingers entwined with her man's, as she watched the drama Tony had made of their household. He wanted that with Cally. Maybe he needed it. Maybe he'd know what the hell to do if he could just have Cally's hand in his, feel the heat of his body next to his own. He glanced at Cally leaning on the wall by the window and tossed back too much of the whisky before he said, "I'm not normal, Josh."

He waited out the sounds of Joshian outrage, and said, "I have to be scrupulously clean. I have to never crack the wrong joke, and I have to do my job double what some guy's brother or uncle or old linemate does. Joey's my oldest friend in this game, and he needed to see me not looking at his players the wrong way for fucking months, Josh."

"No one's supposed to see why Jonas irritates you," Cally said. He sounded sad, and Tony understood that. Cally found it so funny how much Jonas got under Tony's skin, and all he wanted to do was laugh about it with someone who would get the joke.

Donna said quietly, "One of the women lawyers at work says it's not the glass ceiling that's hard, it's the thin ice under your feet."

Tony nodded and said, "Yeah."

"Do you just let them set the rules for you?" Eileen asked him. "Did you do that when you played?"

"I'm a tough guy, and I always played bigger than my big mouth. But for most of those years, no one knew."

"But you can't just let them close the door in your face," she said urgently. "Someone has to, I don't know, make the effort here, be the first."

"Kick over the barriers and blaze the trail," Tony said bitterly. "Never take no for an answer. Go for it with everything you've got."

"You don't say that in that tone to the boys," Cally said. "You tell them stuff like that, and you mean it."

"Yeah," Tony said. "Yeah, I try to."

Cally came closer. "Brad says things. About the game and how good it is, like hockey is always about being a good person. And I thought that sounded like us, like you and me and the boys. But then Caleb told me stuff about being in junior, and I don't know what to think."

"If I take this job," Tony said, hearing the longing in his own voice, and seeing that Cally could hear it too. "If I did, and it blows up in our faces, it's not me that suffers. I still have too much money and better things in life to care about than a hockey team. It's not my only chance that gets yanked away."

"Maybe it's Caleb's if you don't," Seth said.

Tony turned to him, sitting there listening and not talking much, master of the bland face. "I like you, kid, you're tough in the corners."

"I have no idea what that means," Seth said.

"You spiked it so it hit him right in the face," Eileen said with no sign of disapproval.

"Oh, yeah, that's awesome. Love that," Seth enthused.

Why anyone bought into that 'nice Canadian' bullshit, Tony would never understand.

"You think I'm not tough enough to stand up for myself?" Cally asked, just a tinge of his father's outrage in his voice.

Tony turned back to him, watched him stand up tall and try to look menacing as he stepped into the middle of the room. "That might intimidate most people," Tony said, grinning.

"So I don't scare you," Cally said, voice rising. "Pete doesn't. Joey doesn't. You almost started a bar fight with that Willy-boy guy, and you know this job is what you're meant to do. I don't get it. I don't. I want you to say yes, Tony. I want you to try, and I want you to get Pete to give Caleb a shot too. Who the hell is going to bother with Jonas if you don't? You don't have to hide to protect me, it won't work anyway. Jesus, Tony, look at me!"

It wasn't Tony who looked, it was Sean McCallum's family. And he saw them starting to understand who Cally was, a new man. How hard and fast he would run toward what he wanted. But Tony wasn't hiding, or he didn't think he was. He'd been sure he wasn't. He was giving Cally a shot.

"You're not my dad, Tony. Your job isn't to help me grow up and send me off like Andy. I thought you knew that. You explained that to me that people would think that's what we were about. Maybe you forgot or something. You guys with your full up brains do that a lot. But your job is to let me help you get what you want, same as me. We're a team, Tony. Say yes to Pete, and then we can go find some Russians in New York to play hockey with."

"Simple as that," Tony said. "Just as easy as learning to play the game all over again."

"It's not easy," Cally said, witheringly.

"If you can do it, I can do it?" Tony asked him, starting to believe it might be true.

"You never score on the shots you don't take," Cally said, like it was profound, like it really meant something. "Unless it bounces in off your ass," he added, and broke out in loud laughter.

Or your uncle or your brother or your old linemate gets you the job. Tony had won a playoff game once from a puck bouncing off his leg. He'd never considered giving the game back. And sometimes you lost, and the game broke your heart.

"Say yes, Tony," Cally said, urgently, like he needed it.

Tony looked at him, and thought maybe he could try it. Thin ice didn't scare him either, even if it should. And Jay was a bright kid, he just needed someone to tell him when he was full of shit, someone he'd listen to. Was it giving in to temptation? Or was Cally right about it all. The idea had taken him, though, filled his heart with the same feeling the game had. The urge to go for it and win it that made life worth living.

Tony thumbed his phone to life before he got the idea again that noble sacrifice was how you made your man happy. Jesus, he was a dumbass sometimes. "Yeah, Pete? I'm saying yes. Yes, I'll take the job. Yes, I'll help you make that team into something again. Tomorrow I'm siccing my agent on you, though, so be ready."

Cally waited until he'd ended the call before he whooped in joy and fist pumped the air. Tony just looked at him, beautiful and alive, more alive than he'd ever been in all the years Tony could remember and Cally couldn't. He was Sean McCallum with an unbroken heart, and Tony just had to keep him that way. Simple as that.


	23. Chapter 23

"I want to go home right now," Cally said with fervour. "I want to get all this started, find someone to work with. Where are we going to live? And call your agent, I don't want you backing out."

Tony stood in the middle of Cally's living room and let Cally pace around him. It was a bit like standing in the middle of the ice while a team did warmup laps around you.

"Can I ask Caleb to come visit and work out with me? He's my friend, so I can, right? It doesn't have to be just guys on my team. And Jonas, what if I want to ask him too?" Cally stopped and stared at Tony, and then grinned huge. "It's so exciting!"

Tony was inclined to use the word terrifying, just not out loud. "Okay, babe, first things first. I gotta call Joey."

"Oh, yeah." Cally's face fell. "He'll be disappointed."

"He won't even be surprised," Tony said, and he thumbed his phone to life. He assumed the Lions were about to buy a controlling interest in the Cubs, if not the whole team, and Joe's world was going to change around him whether he liked it or not. "You need to decide what to do with this place," Tony said to Cally while he waited for Joe to pick up.

"Tony," Joe said. "I have news."

"That's my line, Joey," Tony said. "But you go first."

"I've been offered a new job. Assistant General Manger of the New Haven Lions and General Manager of the Bridgeport Cubs. I would report directly to Steigler."

"They've moved on that already?" Tony said. "And please fucking tell me you said yes."

"I said yes to a one-year deal. If I don't like things under a new ownership structure, I want to retire."

"You're too young to retire."

"My son, Trask, the oldest, he's got a new job in Florida. Miranda is keenly interested in seeing the grandchildren in the winter now, and I can see her point of view on that. Now tell me your shocking news, Tony."

"I got talked into Pete's job offer. Cally wore me down."

"Good for him," Joe said firmly. "I was told whoever is running their new player development operation would be consulting closely with me, so it sounds like I don't even get a chance to miss you much."

"This will work only if you and I make it work, Joey. We have to be in on it together."

"You, me and Pete, Tony. I think we have to be in on it with him now."

"Yeah, true. It's not official, Joey, no contracts have been signed, but in a second I'm calling my agent."

"That shark," Joe said with a laugh. "I almost feel sorry for Pete."

"Don't. I've been thinking about this. Our job, you and me, is to make all their prospects so fucking good they can't afford half of them. So they need to get used to the idea that the wallet has to open up."

"Like you're doing them a favour, Tony? You always were good at figuring how what was good for you was good for the team."

"It usually was," Tony said, almost indignantly.

"Call your shark, I'm going to go tell Miranda you're not going anywhere. Or are you? You going to move back to New Haven?"

"I — I don't know, Joey. I never thought of that. We might want that. Pick something together." Tony looked at Cally, who was watching him closely from a few feet away, and considered buying a new house with the new Cally. He could only imagine the colours it would end up once Cally got five minutes alone with a decorator.

"How's he doing?" Joe asked.

"Amazing. Struggling sometimes. Ask us in a month after we've found him some guys to work with at a high level. Hey, do you have Vladdy Makarenko's number?"

"I do, Tony, I'll text it to you. Vladdy, eh? Should I start assuming this team is going to get more European?"

"I still ain't no scout, Joey, but it's where the guys are no one else has found yet, so likely."

"The world keeps changing," Joe said.

"Yeah," Tony said. "I think I want to go along for the ride as it does, Joey. I want you there too."

"I'm giving it a fair trial, Tony, trust me, but it might be time for young guys like you to run things. Call your agent, get the ball rolling, and come over for dinner when you come back east."

"Okay, we will, Joey, we will."

"I know what I'm doing with this place," Cally said as soon as he disconnected the call. "I'm renting it to Jeremy. My manager said I should keep it as an investment."

"Just be careful making a deal with a friend, Cally."

"Tillburg is looking after it all, and I want to text him to say we're going home, but when? Can we go tomorrow? I've told Brad that we're going back, and then, Tony, should I give him money? I know he's paid, but my dad sorted that out, and I don't know."

"Write him a letter of reference, Tillburg will know how, and tell him you want to pay Brad some extra. And, fuck, I don't know, can we just go tomorrow?"

Cally frowned. "Call your agent, and I'll call Tillburg."

Tony did as he was told, and then he stood and looked out at the lights on the water while Cally hashed things out with Tillburg. He needed to sort out the chain of command with Pete, and he had to nail down what level of time commitment they wanted from him in the office before July and all the rookie work started. He had his own boys to think about too. Not that they'd be upset at the prospect of free room and board in New York if Tony ended up there for a few weeks.

Tony's phone buzzed and he looked at the text from Joe with Vladdy's phone number. He took a chance and called even though it was getting late back home.

"Tony Grenier," Vladdy's voice boomed in his ear. "I hear you are looking for me. I hear from so many guys, this, I wonder how I got hard to find."

"Vladdy, you old fuck, how the hell are you?"

"I am good, Tony, good. New York is a good place to live, and my boys are happy here. How are you, is this true that you are going up in the world?"

"You know all the gossip, don't you? Nothing's official yet, but yeah, I'm going to go for it and come on board with the old team. But this call isn't about that. Not really."

"This call is about Sean McCallum," Vladdy said with confidence, "I talked to Sergei Nikishin about him. You will not know this, but Sergei is from same club team as me back home. He says many things about how Sean McCallum is a new man now, but mostly he says that if anyone fucks with him, they will get it from Sergei, so I think your Cally made good impression."

"Cally hit it off with the Russian guys, not sure why, but now we're wondering if it will work on the ice."

"I know why, Tony, but we will talk about that someday when we have the vodka out. Sergei is in Moscow now, but I have some other people local I know. If Cally puts up the money, or you, the Lions, it does not matter, I will bring you a group to work with, this is what you want, yes?"

That gave Tony ample confirmation Pete had already talked to Vladdy about Cally and about Tony's new job, but one question was left unanswered. "What's in this for you, Vladdy?"

Vladdy laughed at him. "My boys come too. Even the younger one who is not so good. Bring yours, they are same age, they can be friends, and maybe we find them special coach. You and me together, we pay."

Tony rubbed at his chin considering that. "Yeah. Maybe. My kids go their own way, and I haven't pushed, but maybe I should have for Andy. He's got some camp he's going to in August with his boy."

"I send you names of guys I know. We start there," Vladdy said decisively. "And then we see. Maybe some night with the vodka, I will tell you about some young guys back home, and you will listen too, Tony, just listen."

"Sure," Tony said. That's how the game was played, after all.

He didn't realize he had stayed imobile, just standing with his phone in his hand after he'd finished with Vladdy, until Cally stepped behind him and slid his arms around Tony, warming him up. "I haven't called the kids today," Tony said, leaning back.

"You should text them," Cally said.

He did that, grinned like always when he signed off with 'love, Dad'. He hoped that never got routine, that it always made him laugh and that he never forgot it was Cally who taught him the lesson. "I love you, Cally."

"Me too," Cally said, holding on. "I need you, Tony. I need you with me. I learned that here by myself, but mostly I just missed you, and wanted you here to love."

"I'm scared about this, babe."

"The job?" Cally sounded surprised.

"Yeah. All of it. All the thousand ways I might fuck this up. Life was simpler on the ice, and I'm not always sure I'm not just faking it all the time, acting like I can run a team."

"Is anyone not faking it?" Cally asked, sounding genuinely curious. "Caleb said the way you figure out the game is just by watching and doing what the other guys do. Brad told me he wasn't sure he was really a good coach, but he'd do his best, and I learned a lot. I think everyone just tries."

"Joey told me the secret is to hire smart people and then listen to them, but I think he was just pumping my tires when he said that."

"He likes you. He trusts you."

"Yeah. Yeah, he does. Cally, you should invite Caleb out to New York when we get it sorted. Vladdy, he sounds like Pete's already got the ball rolling there, so I'm guessing someone else might show up for whatever the hell we're doing."

"Who?" Cally asked.

"A kid named Ranger, if you can believe that."

"Nice of his parents to just give him the nickname right off, saves time," Cally said, and then he laughed, too loud, too long, too bright.

"Babe. Cally. If the day ever comes when you want to run a restaurant in New York City, I want to be there with you."

"I've thought about it. But I've got years and years to learn things. Hockey first."

"Yeah, okay. You learn to play it, I'll learn how to manage it, and we'll fake it in the meantime. Maybe we'll win something."

"Oh," Cally enthused, "that would be cool. I told Caleb if I have to play the whole year on the Cubs, it's okay, they have a trophy for that league. I want it. It would be my first."

Tony didn't tell him the Cubs hadn't won the trophy in over ten years. He pulled away and turned around so he could see his man. "Not your last, though, babe. I think if we're dreaming, we should dream big."

"I'm not dreaming," Cally said, "I'm planning. I told Tillburg we want an afternoon flight to New York tomorrow, so come on, I want to show you this other thing I planned out. You have to be naked for it, though."

"If I have to, babe, for you, I'll suffer."

"No suffering. I've got this all figured out so you get what you want, and I get what I want."

"So, I just do what you tell me, and everyone is happy?" Tony asked, letting Cally tow him towards the bedroom.

"I know what you mean by that tone, Tony. I get it sometimes."

"I'm not sorry you talked me into this job, babe. I'm just not sure I'm doing the right thing."

"Tony, stop looking so far down the road. Concentrate on the problem in front of you that you _can_ solve." Cally punctuated this recycled advice by pointing at his crotch and laughing.

Tony had to join in. Laughing at life was part of the new world he lived in. "That's a big problem, Cally. Let me see what I can do with it."

"Naked first," Cally said imperiously, with a sweep of his hand.

He was going to be a hell of a chef some day, with that attitude. Or a hockey coach, Tony considered, as he stripped as commanded. Or porn director, he thought a little later, as he did a few other things on command.

The future was vast and unknown, and Tony was terrified by it at times, but he had the right man to explore it with, he was sure of that. He could go as far down the road with Cally as there was road to run on.


End file.
